Fangtastic
by vespertine dreams
Summary: Spike and Connor Temple meet at an anomaly site and Spike goes to work at the ARC. Slash- Connor/Spike, Connor/Spike/Lester, Becker/Angel. Rated for a reason- for language, adult content, sexual content, threesome, biting.
1. Connor Meets Spike

This was for a random pairing generator challenge. Prompt: Connor Temple meets Spike on the Forth Bridge

* * *

Connor looked on in surprise as the blonde-haired man stepped through the anomaly, moments before it shimmered closed again. He suddenly thought that it might not have been such a good idea to come here alone to investigate the anomaly, in the middle of the night. He'd only volunteered because he'd been nearby, spending the week with his aunt. When Lester had phoned him, he'd agreed to check it out.

The man stopped, frowned, and looked around before fixing his stare on Connor.

"Oi! You! Where am I?"

Connor began to back away slowly; something about this guy made him nervous. Maybe it was the way he watched Connor as though he were lunch. Trying to keep his eye on the stranger, Connor began hurrying back to his car but before he'd taken two steps, the man was there in front of him.

"Please don't hurt me!"

The stranger gave him an exasperated look that reminded him of the ones Lester gave him whenever he did something stupid.

"I'm not hungry," he replied. "Now, where is this?"

Connor decided to ignore the first part. "Forth Bridge. Scotland," he elaborated.

"Bugger." The stranger rounded on him. "One minute, I'm in Sunnydale, in my crypt and then that bloody sparkly thing appeared and… now I'm here."

"Crypt?"

That earned him another eye-roll. "Yes, crypt. I'm a vampire; where the hell else do you expect me to sleep?"

"V-Vampire?" Connor mulled it over for a moment. He knew that he should be scared, like he was before, but… "Cool! Really? A real vampire? Like Blade or Dracula? No, wait, Blade wasn't a full vampire, was he? He was only half-vampire, half-human-"

"Do you ever stop talking?"

Connor smiled self-consciously. "Sorry. I'm Connor, by the way."

"Spike," the stranger said, taking a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his black leather trench-coat and lighting one up. "So, any idea how I'm gonna get back home now the whatjmacallit's vanished?"

Connor shook his head. "It's called an anomaly. It might come back, but that doesn't happen very often."

Spike took another drag on his cigarette and then smiled happily. "So, where are we staying?"

"We?"

"If I'm gonna be here for a while, I'll need someplace to crash. Right?"

The walk back to the car was silent as Connor tried to work out how to tell his aunt that he'd brought a strange bloke home with him. It didn't last.

"So, have you got fangs? Can you turn into a bat? That'd be cool if you could fly…"

Spike sighed. It could be a long night.

TBC.


	2. Fangtastic

Fang-tastic

Connor huddled into his jacket and shivered, glaring at Spike. It was his fault that they were standing out here in the cold. They could have been inside, in the warm, but no, the vampire had to have a smoke.

"Oh, stop complaining, you big girl," Spike grumbled. "I'm not the one who made us stand out here."

Resisting the urge to hit him- that would involve taking his hand out of his pocket, Connor reasoned- he sighed. His aunt had caught Spike lighting his cigarette in the kitchen and told him to go outside. Still, Connor couldn't object too much; his aunt had been pretty good about the whole situation so far. After all, she had allowed Spike to stay until Connor went back home again with only minimum questions asked, putting up with the vampire's odd habits also. Connor had told her that he was an old friend from work who he'd met up with when he'd been called out to the anomaly. Not that he'd said the word anomaly, of course.

"Well, it's a disgusting habit," Connor pointed out. "You should quit."

Spike cast him a disbelieving look. "'S not like it'll kill me," he said dryly.

"I suppose not."

"So is that what you do?" Spike asked after a while. "You investigate those sparkly things?"

"Anomalies," Connor corrected.

Spike indicated with his cigarette towards the house. "And I take it that she doesn't know?"

Connor shook his head. "We all had to sign the Official Secrets Act," he said. "We aren't allowed to tell anyone."

Stubbing his cigarette out on the wall beside him, Spike watched the young man shiver again. He kind of liked it here; true, as far as he knew, he was the only vampire but that had its benefits. He'd gone two days without a vampire or demon trying to kill him. And Connor wasn't so bad; he reminded Spike of an over-enthusiastic puppy. The kid was a bit of a geek at times, and he asked way too many questions, but he was good company. He had let Spike use his laptop that first night to try and find some way home, but it turned out that the anomaly had brought him not only to a different country but to a different world. In this place, Sunnydale didn't exist, which meant he had nowhere to go once Connor left. When he mentioned this, Connor shuffled nervously.

"You could come back with me, if you like," he said.

Spike smiled. "OK."

At around one o'clock the following morning, Connor and Spike finally arrived home. Connor had changed his train tickets to a night journey so that Spike could avoid the sunlight, and they had caught a taxi back from the station.

"We need to be quiet," Connor said as he put the key into the lock. "Lester will be pissed if I wake him." And if he finds out I've brought someone back with me, he added silently.

"This Lester bloke; is he your dad?"

Connor shook his head.

"Boyfriend?" Spike tried again.

"No! He's my boss, now shush, would you?"

Luckily, Spike actually listened to him this time and he managed to get both of them to his room without waking Lester. Connor dumped his bags in the corner to sort out tomorrow and got ready for bed.

"You're going to sleep?" Spike asked in disbelief. "You don't normally go to sleep this early; it's the middle of the night."

Connor climbed into bed and dragged the covers over him. "Exactly. Some of us have to go to work tomorrow morning."

"But I'm not tired."

Connor pulled the covers over his head with a sigh. "So read a book."

There was silence for a while and Connor was just falling asleep when the covers lifted and Spike climbed into bed with him.

"Shove up a bit, eh?"

He wanted to argue, to protest, to ask Spike what he thought he was playing at, but it was more trouble than it was worth. If he wanted to get any sleep, it was better to just let Spike do what he wanted. Besides, there were worse ways to spend the night being in bed with a good looking bloke. Which, of course, began his mind whirring again; he was thinking how embarrassing it was to be in bed with Spike, now that he'd acknowledged that he found the vampire attractive. At his aunt's house, Spike had slept on the second twin bed in the room Connor was staying in.

Connor must have fallen asleep at some point because the next time he looked at the clock it was three am. He blinked in the darkness, trying to work out what had disturbed him and only then realised that he was alone in bed. He groaned; it had been Lester's voice that had woken him.

In the kitchen, Lester was in his pyjamas and wielding a cricket bat, with Spike cornered against the fridge. A very naked Spike. Which meant that Spike must have been naked when he'd climbed into bed with him, Connor realised. The vampire looked furious, glowering at Lester and looking as though he was about to attack.

"Spike, back off," he said, going into the kitchen. "That's Lester."

The vampire looked disappointed but his stance relaxed a little. Lester lowered the bat and rounded on Connor, still casting the vampire uneasy looks every so often.

"Well?" he demanded. "Who the bloody hell is that?"

"His name's Spike; we met up in Scotland. He came through the anomaly and it closed before he could go back-"

Lester's eyes narrowed. "You're telling me that you picked up some stranger who came from goodness knows where and you _brought him into my flat?_ For all you know he could be one of Helen's acquaintances or a total psychopath. What were you thinking?"

"Hey, I'm standin' right here, mate."

Even vampires weren't immune to Lester's glare, Connor observed as Spike fell silent.

"Lester, he's not with Helen. He's ok."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, causing Connor and Lester to both turn and glare at him this time.

"Would you please go and put some clothes on?" Connor asked.

Spike wandered off, partly listening to the two men argue for a while before the sound of someone stomping away and the slam of a door. Moments later, Connor reappeared.

"Sorry," Spike said. "Look, go back to bed; I promise I'll stay put. And I'll wear clothes," he added grudgingly.

The next morning, Lester's mood hadn't improved at all. Between grumbling about being woken up at all hours of the morning and the fact that Connor had dumped his shoes in the entrance hall where Lester had fallen over them, Lester was not the best company on the journey to the ARC. When they got there, he pulled into the most shaded parking place he could find and opened the back door. Connor held the ARC door open as Spike raced from the back seat of the car, a couple of thick blankets pulled up over his head to protect him from the sunlight.

Lester had vetoed the idea of Spike staying at the flat whilst Connor was at work.

"He's not staying here unattended," he had said. "You brought him home, so you can look after him. He's going with you, and Connor? Keep him out of trouble."

Easier said than done, Connor thought when two hours later, he realised that Spike was gone from the chair in the corner of his office. He sighed, shutting down his computer file to go and find him.

It didn't take him long; he had barely made it past the detector room when the alarms sounded. At first he thought it was an anomaly, but he quickly realised that this was the internal alarms. Seeing a couple of the soldiers hurry past him, he ran to catch them up. He had a bad feeling about this.

Spike dropped the first two soldiers with punches and kicks before the others got wise to his unnatural speed and strength and kept themselves at a safe distance. They had guns levelled at him, ordering him to put his hands up or they'd shoot. Connor saw Spike's face contort as his fangs lengthened, ready to pounce. Becker flicked the safety off his gun, finger on the trigger.

"Becker, no!"

Connor came rushing around the corner and Spike saw his dark eyes widen as he took in the situation. What he didn't expect was for Connor to put himself between the soldiers and him.

The one who Connor had addressed as Becker moved to try and pull him out of the line of fire but Connor ducked out of his reach.

"Get out of the way," the soldier snapped. "He's dangerous; he just took out two of my men."

Connor turned to Spike and sighed. "Why?"

"They started it," Spike complained, his face returning to normal. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was bored and you were busy so I thought I'd have a look around then Pretty Boy there and his toy soldiers attacked me. I was only defending myself."

Becker scowled at him, even as Connor bit back his laughter.

"Call me that again and I _will_ shoot you." He turned to Connor. "Who the hell is he? _What_ the hell is he?"

Good question, Connor thought, but you won't like the answer. He hadn't even told Lester that Spike was a vampire. It wasn't the sort of thing you could just drop into the conversation but that wasn't a problem now. Now, everyone had seen it.

"He's a friend, Becker."

"But he's not human!" Becker hissed at him, taking him aside.

"So he's a vampire," Connor relented. "He's not dangerous, really he's not. It's fine; Lester knows he's here."

Becker didn't look convinced. "So you let a civilian wander around a government facility, alone, and you didn't think to clear it with my security team?"

"OK, so I should have told you but Lester said it was OK for Spike to be here. Ask him if you don't believe me."

"Does Lester know what he is?"

Connor shook his head and Becker sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing." He reluctantly lowered the gun and indicated for his men to do the same. After a moment, he frowned.

"His name's Spike?"

Spike glared. "Yeah- Spike. Got a problem with that?"

Connor rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of Spike's leather coat sleeve. "You, back to my office before Lester hears about any of this and you get me into any more trouble."

As he dragged Spike away, Becker heard him add, "As if Lester finding you wandering about naked in his flat last night wasn't bad enough…"

Mark edged up closer to Becker. "Did I just hear him say-"

"You did," Becker confirmed. "Though I really wish I hadn't. I don't even want to know."

Mark grinned. "Speak for yourself; I _have_ to hear this." He set off in the direction Connor and Spike had gone.

"He might not want to tell you," Becker pointed out, amazed that after the revelation that Spike was a vampire, it was Connor's private life that they'd focussed on. They'd all been working here for too long; even vampires didn't shock them any more.

"Maybe not, but he will."

Dev followed Mark out, a wicked smile on his face. "Kid'll crack in five minutes flat."

"What are you going to do to him?" Becker demanded, looking worried as he hurried after them.

By the time he reached them, the two soldiers had found Connor working in his office, standing around his desk as Spike glared at them.

"So, about last night…" Mark asked.

Connor shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know what you mean."

Dev smiled. "Oh yes you do. We heard you back there; Lester finding him wandering about naked. What _have_ you been getting up to, Connor?"

"Nothing!"

Dev glanced at Mark and then back to Connor. "I don't believe you. Let's start with an easy one, shall we? What were you doing in Lester's flat last night? And with a naked bloke, too."

Spike sighed loudly, drawing their attention to him instead. "You're really starting to annoy me, you know. Why don't you both just piss off."

Mark shook his head. "We're just having a chat, right Dev? Nothing to get yourself upset about."

"So?" Dev asked Connor.

"It's not what you think, honest! Look, you have to promise you won't tell Lester I told you or he'll be mad at me because he said not to tell anyone. I live there and Spike's staying with me, only Lester didn't know, and I didn't know that he'd go wandering about starkers- Spike, not Lester. Eww, not good- I really don't want to start imagining my boss naked. Unfortunately now I have…"

Dev smiled as he listened to Connor's ramblings; it was just too easy. All it took was a couple of minutes of needling and Connor cracked. Goodness knew what he'd would do if his life ever depended on keeping something quiet. Dev was about to ask another question when Spike elbowed his way between them and stood himself in front of Connor. Arms folded across his chest, he shot his most menacing glare at the two soldiers.

Mark held up his hands. "Fine, we're going," he said, giving his partner-in-crime a shove towards the door.

Spike spent the most of the afternoon asleep in a padded armchair in the corner of Connor's office, covered with his long leather coat. Connor, however, didn't get such a restful afternoon; he spent his time fending off questions about who Spike was and why he was staying with Connor. Funny, he thought, how they only asked him. On the few occasions when Spike had ventured out with him, they'd all been polite, doing no more than say hi and introduce themselves.

Sarah and Abby stopped him as he made his way to the canteen in search of coffee, steering him toward Sarah's office.

"So, a vampire. Really?" Abby asked. "You will be careful, won't you?"

"What do you mean?"

She smiled sympathetically and patted his shoulder. "I saw the way you looked at him before; you like him, don't you?"

Connor froze. He really thought he'd hidden it better than that.

"You haven't told him, have you?" Sarah asked. "Just go for it, Connor."

No matter what they thought, it wasn't quite as simple as that, he mused. For starters, he had no idea whether or not the vampire did reciprocate, or if he were even capable of it. And then there was the fact that he was _a vampire_. What did he know about vampires apart from what he'd learned from Dracula movies? He was still mulling it over in his mind when he got ready for bed that night.

Two hours later, Connor still couldn't fall asleep. All he could think about was the vampire curled up in bed with him, which got his mind wandering back to what Sarah had said earlier. He turned over to face the other man.

"Spike?"

There was sigh as Spike opened his eyes. "Now what?"

"If you're technically dead," he began, "can you still feel stuff?"

Spike sighed. "You mean like anger? I'll give you a demonstration of that if you keep asking these bloody stupid questions."

"That's not quite what I had in mind, but good to know," Connor told him. He had avoided this subject when he'd first been questioning Spike about being a vampire. Mainly because he didn't quite know how to ask.

"But if you're dead, then can you, um, _you know_." Spike noticed Connor's involuntary glance along Spike's body, looking embarrassed when he realised he had. "I mean, if you're heart isn't beating and therefore isn't pumping blood around your body, then how…"

Spike hadn't missed the surreptitious glances over the past few days, or the fact that despite his complaints, Connor seemed more than happy to be sharing his bed each night. He'd been wondering how long it would take the kid to gather the courage to ask. He smirked.

"I can assure you that everything is in perfect working order down there."

"Oh. Sorry; that was nosy, wasn't it?"

Spike's smile widened. "Depends on why you were asking."

Connor's cheeks turned almost scarlet as he looked away. "Just curious," he mumbled. He felt movement and turned to look just as Spike pulled Connor under him.

"Curious; yeah, right," Spike said, and then he kissed him.

Connor felt the vampire's cool body pressed against him as he kissed him. He hadn't ever noticed before when Spike was just sleeping next to him but this was closer than they'd been when sleeping. It wasn't unsettling, just slightly odd.

"You're cold," he said quietly.

Spike smiled. "Course I am." He looked into Connor's eyes. "I'm warm when I've just fed, but it's been a while."

"How often do you have to eat? Only, you haven't been out on your own- Oh my God! You haven't bitten Lester, have you?"

The vampire frowned. "You want to talk about this now?" he asked. "I need blood every few days and, no, I haven't bitten your boss."

"It's been four days since you came through the anomaly so that means you'll have to go out and find someone to feed from soon, doesn't it?" There was a pause and then, "Spike? What does it feel like when you get bitten? Does it hurt? You don't have to tell me; I'm just asking."

"I can hurt, but usually it feels good. _Very_ good."

Connor was silent for a while and Spike wondered if this was the part where he got kicked out of bed. Which would be a damn shame, he decided. He liked Connor, and the kid was one hell of a kisser.

"I don't-" Connor stopped and looked away, avoiding Spike's gaze. He took a deep breath and Spike could see him steeling himself before he said, "I don't want you to bite anyone."

"I don't have much of a choice."

Connor met his eyes this time. "I meant anyone else. You can bite me."

Spike studied him, searching those big brown eyes carefully.

"Please, Spike; I want you to. You said it felt good," Connor said quietly. "I don't want you doing that with some stranger."

At that, Spike smiled. His little Connor was getting jealous. He wouldn't have thought that the kid getting so possessive would have been such a thrill, but it was.

"Alright."

Connor felt a fluttering of nerves in the pit of his stomach as he turned his head to the side, bearing his throat, but then he felt Spike's lips brush over his neck. Fingers trailed down the length of his torso, exploring, before Spike tugged Connor's t-shirt up, rolling them so that he could strip it off completely and toss it aside. Connor shifted in the vampire's lap as Spike's hands began pushing beneath the waistband of the boxers he wore.

"Take 'em off."

Connor scrambled out of bed and did as asked, seeing the smile on Spike's face as he looked Connor over appraisingly.

"Come here."

"Bossy," Connor muttered.

Spike dragged him back into bed again and pinned Connor under his body, leaning down for another kiss. One hand crept between them to close around Connor's cock, stroking and teasing as he made Connor whimper for more.

Connor felt the faint sting as Spike's sharp fangs pierced his skin but it quickly shifted to something different altogether, something erotic; he could feel Spike's lips on his neck, feel the faint pulsing as Spike drank from him and the vampire's body heat returned. More importantly, he also answered his earlier question as he felt Spike growing hard against his hip. Between the mouth latched onto his neck and Spike's talented fingers, Connor found himself coming with a hoarse cry.

Spike released his neck, tongue licking gently over the wound to seal it, and Connor looked up at him with a wide smile. He felt a little spaced out, like he'd had a couple of drinks. Must be blood loss, he thought, reaching up to close his hand around the back of Spike's neck and pull him down for a kiss. He could still taste the faint coppery tang of blood on Spike's lips but he didn't feel the revulsion that he had expected. Instead, he remembered the feel of Spike drinking from him, how good it had felt.

"Want you," he murmured against Spike's lips, pushing his hips up to grind against Spike. "Please."

Spike raised an eyebrow in surprise when he fished in the drawer that Connor pointed to next to the bed, making Connor blush again.

"Aren't you just full of surprises? We're going to have a chat about those toys later on," Spike teased as he tossed the lube bottle on the floor, getting Connor ready.

"Just do it, please," Connor begged as Spike's fingers slid easily in and out of him, making him whimper again.

The fingers vanished and Connor closed his eyes, groaning softly as Spike began to ease into him, pushing inside, filling him completely.

"Open your eyes, Connor. Look at me."

Connor did, meeting Spike's gaze. The vampire fucked Connor hard, pounding into him even as he begged for more.

The following morning, in the ARC, Connor saw Becker approaching. The soldier had been watching him for the past five minutes and it was starting to make him nervous. He backed Connor into the staff room and reached over to tug down the collar of his jacket.

"Where is he?" Becker demanded. "The vampire: where?"

Connor saw the fury in Becker's eyes and took an inadvertent step away.

"I'll bloody kill him."

"Why?"

Becker just stared at him in disbelief. "What do you mean, why? Are you telling me that you actually _let_ that creature bite you?"

Connor noticed Abby and Sarah come into the room, attracted by the raised voices, and sighed. They had to turn up now, didn't they? He knew that Becker wasn't going to back off, though.

"Yes, I did," he said softly, so softly in fact that Becker asked him to repeat himself as the two women edged closer to listen.

"Why would you let that creature do that to you?"

"Stop calling him that." He really wished that the ground would open up, right now. Why the hell should he have to explain himself to them?

"Connor?"

Something in him snapped then; if they wanted to be so damn nosy then let them.

"Because it felt good!" he told his audience, annoyed. "Because he needed it and it felt so fucking fantastic as well. You know what else? I let him fuck me too. In fact, I spent most of last night with his cock up my arse!"

The surprise on Abby and Sarah's faces was almost comical, though not quite as amusing as the complete embarrassment on Becker's. The soldier mumbled an apology and left. Quickly.

Sarah and Abby watched him go and then turned back to Connor.

"I won't say I'm not worried about the biting thing," Abby said, glancing at the two puncture wounds on Connor's neck. "But I'm not going to lecture you about it. Just promise me you won't let him hurt you."

Connor smiled. "He wouldn't. I trust him."

"Good enough for me," she told him, then smiled. "So, all night, you say?"

Connor couldn't stop the smug grin that spread across his features as he nodded, making the women laugh.

End.


	3. Captain Kirk made us do it

A/N- Originally, this was only on my livejournal but I've reconsidered posting here as well. BUT please take note of the warnings/rating - sexual content, threesome- if you're not comfortable with this, it's your choice whether or not you read on.

* * *

Captain Kirk made us do it

James Lester opened his eyes and groaned as the bright light made his head hurt, closing them again. What the bloody hell had he been doing last night? He frowned. More importantly, why wasn't he alone? A slightly cool body pressed against his back, an arm slung casually across his waist. A male body, from the feel of it. There was movement and then someone tucked themselves up against his chest, face nuzzling under his chin, against the side of his throat as a soft snore sounded.

He remembered bits and pieces and it was getting clearer, or was that a dream? Opening his eyes again, he glanced at the dark hair of the person cuddled up to him. Well, that answered one question; it had certainly not been a dream.

It all came flooding back then.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Eleven hours earlier…)

Lester walked into his flat to the sound of laughter, finding Spike and Connor in the living room, on the sofa. On the table in front of them was a half empty bottle of tequila and two glasses. They were watching one of Connor's Star Trek DVD's- he'd seen the things often enough since Connor had moved in to even recognise the series- and suddenly, Spike reached for one of the shot glasses. He downed the tequila and only then noticed Lester standing in the doorway.

"You want a drink?"

Lester shook his head. "I think I'll just turn in," he said. "It's been a long day."

Connor was up off the sofa before he could even take a step toward his room. "Lester, come and join us. We had a rotten day and so me and Spike thought we'd unwind a bit. You look as though you could use a drink too."

He was right, Lester thought. They had spent the entire day trying to clean up the mess that a pissed-off stegosaurus had caused by wandering out of an anomaly in the middle of a university campus. Catching the creature had taken them less time than confiscating all of the mobile-phone footage that had been recorded. Lester had then spent a good hour on the phone with his superiors, getting endless lectures about the chaos caused. As though he was personally responsible for letting the creature loose!

"Come on," Spike added, getting another glass out. "It's fun."

Lester took off his jacket and hung it neatly on the coat rack by the door, sitting down. Connor started the DVD again.

"It's a game. So, I'm Spock and Spike is Captain Kirk- you can be Bones. Each time your character does a certain thing, you have to have a drink, got it?" Connor told him, and then launched into a long rambling list. Spike caught Lester's eye and smiled, shaking his head minutely.

Lester nodded; he knew that look quite well, from every time he listened to Connor. The one that said 'just let him talk; he's enjoying himself'.

"Right?" Connor asked as he stopped talking and glanced at Lester.

Lester nodded and sat back as Connor started again, this time explaining what had already happened in the episode so far. A moment later he pointed at the screen, just as Doctor McCoy scanned his tricorder over a fallen crewman and announced, _"He's dead, Jim."_

"Drink!" He handed Lester a shot glass.

For a moment, Lester just stared at it before he shrugged his shoulders. What the hell, he thought, taking the glass and downing it.

Three hours and another full DVD later, Lester laughed as Connor almost fell over as he stood up to take his shirt off. Since they'd run out of Tequila, the forfeits had turned to removing an item of clothing instead of drinking a shot. Connor stumbled drunkenly over his own feet and landed in Spike's lap, making the vampire grin.

"If you wanted to sit there, love, you only had to ask," he said, leaning forward to give Connor a kiss.

Lester found himself watching them, unable and unwilling to look away. When Connor finally crawled off Spike's lap and back onto the sofa, the vampire gave Lester a knowing smile, making Lester's face heat up. He blinked a couple of times to try and clear his vision, to stop the room from swaying. Nope, not the room, he realised. He couldn't even remember how many shots he'd drunk but he definitely wasn't acting like himself. If he was being honest, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He cheered along with Connor as Spike's turn came around and, as Kirk seduced the alien woman on screen, Spike did a slow strip-tease out of his jeans.

"'M out of clothes," Spike pointed out a short time later as Kirk's actions on screen made it his turn again.

Connor smirked and looked him over hungrily. "Not complainin'," he said. "OK, you want a dare instead?"

Lester's eyes widened as Spike tugged on his hand to bring him to his feet, even more so when Spike kissed him. It took him a moment to get beyond the shock of having an armful of naked vampire and another to realise that he hadn't even thought about pushing Spike away. He knew that this was no longer part of the game and he was glad. Spike was doing this because he wanted to.

There was a 'Hey!' from Connor, and Spike pulled back to see the other man looking slightly left out. He held out his hand, the other still around Lester. Connor took it and Spike pulled him in closer.

Connor didn't even think about it, just allowed Spike to manoeuvre him in front of Lester and closed his lips over the other man's. It was only as Lester began to kiss him back that a little voice in his head pointed out that this was his boss and maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Connor couldn't bring himself to care about that though, the hand that strayed lower on his back and onto his arse making those thoughts vanish.

Spike watched them for a moment. Connor had said they'd never been anything other than boss and employee but he wondered why; it was obvious that the pair of them wanted this just as much as he did, though quite when he'd developed a fascination with stuffy, uptight civil servants was a mystery. He smiled to himself; probably about the same time he'd started fantasising about geeky scientists. Easing Connor out of Lester's embrace, he gave the younger man a quick kiss, then the same to Lester.

"Maybe we should move this somewhere comfortable?"

Connor and Lester tumbled onto Lester's bed, Connor barely giving the other man chance to land before he closed his lips around Lester's cock making Lester gasp. Spike ran his hands over the naked flesh laid out before him, exploring with his fingers, touching and teasing. As Lester's head fell back to the pillows, Spike eyed the expanse of throat that it revealed. He wouldn't bite until Lester said he could, nor did he need to at the moment, but that didn't mean he couldn't taste. His lips left a trail of kisses down the warm skin, nipping gently, never hard enough to draw blood.

He felt Lester tense beneath his hands moments before he came and glanced back to see Connor sucking him dry, taking in everything Lester offered. Connor crawled back up the bed then, closing his mouth over Spike's, and Spike could taste the other man in the kiss.

They parted to see Lester watching. When the other man knelt to reach out to Connor, pulling him nearer, his fingers closing around Connor's cock, Spike couldn't bite back the anticipatory groan.

"James?"

Lester looked at him and nodded, not even needing him to ask. He leaned over and pulled a little box from under his bed, handing it to Spike before moving onto his hands and knees.

"Please, Spike."

Now how could he refuse an offer- and an arse- like that? Spike took the bottle of lube and a condom from the box and dropped the rest onto the floor.

As Spike's fingers slid into Lester, Connor found his hand going to his own cock, only to have his hand batted away.

"Connor, come up here."

Connor did, kneeling at the head of the bed and Lester took Connor into his mouth as Spike eased himself into Lester. With them both filling him as they were, it was almost sensory overload; all Lester could do was to hang on for the ride and enjoy himself. It did feel good to just hand over control to the two of them, though. He felt Connor's fingers running through his hair as he continued a stream of muttered pleas and groans. Behind him, Spike reached around to take Lester's now re-awakening cock into his hand as he fucked him hard.

Lester forced himself to swallow as Connor came. The young man gripped Lester's hair tightly, holding him there, before he finally moved back and all owed his cock to slip from between Lester's lips. Connor sprawled on the bed beside Lester, smiling happily. Lester's arms began to tire as Spike thrust harder a couple of times, his own climax found, and they both dropped to the bed.

"Oh God," Lester breathed as Spike stretched out on the bed next to him and Connor, all three of them in a sated daze.

"Oh yeah," Connor agreed. He looked over to Spike and prodded him gently with his index finger. "You OK?"

Spike turned onto his side and looked at him through half-closed eyes.

"Bugger me."

Connor chuckled exhaustedly. "Next time, babe," he teased. Spike reached out and swatted his arse as he moved long enough to clean them all up and drag a cover over them, settling down next to Lester again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lester thought back on what he remembered of last night, trying to decide whether he was meant to be panicking after having had sex with the pair of them. There were rules against this sort of thing, about sleeping with your employees. Sure, Spike wasn't an employee but he was technically dead, and Lester wasn't sure if it was worse or not. Connor presented a different problem; he was alive but he was also Lester's subordinate.

Despite all that, Lester had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He yawned, suddenly exhausted; he could work it out in the morning, he thought, closing his eyes again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At breakfast the next morning, in the kitchen with the curtains closed to protect the vampire, Spike sat at the table, drinking coffee. He couldn't eat anything, but he did still like his coffee. Lester sat silently opposite him with a bowl of bran flakes and a glass of juice. Both men looked up as Connor stumbled in, complete with bed-head hair and a pillow crease across his left cheek. He was dressed but not entirely conscious yet.

"Well well, look what the cat dragged in," Spike teased.

Connor stuck his tongue out at him but still stopped to give him a kiss. Lester studied Connor's dazed morning appearance for a moment before standing to get a cup of coffee to Connor, who, without thinking, kissed him thank you as he took it and sat in an empty chair.

Lester saw Connor freeze the moment he realised what he'd done and looked up at him, his brown eyes wide. Lester knew there were two options at this point; he could deny it had happened and go back to being lonely, feeling that twinge of envy each time any of his team paired off, or he heard Connor and Spike laughing and joking and generally behaving like a couple, or he could admit he'd liked it and that he wanted it to happen again. He could see the two of them waiting, expecting the former, and awaiting the inevitable freak-out.

He looked between Connor and Spike, and knew that he didn't want to go back to how it was before. He smiled at them and then leaned down to hesitantly return the kiss Connor had given him.

"Lester? Does this mean…?"

"Yes, Connor. No regrets." He moved to brush his lips over Spike's too, before taking his seat at the table again and going back to his breakfast. "And don't you think that, after last night, you should start calling me James?"

"OK."

"You realise that this changes nothing at the ARC?" he continued. "I can't give you special treatment just because we're sleeping together."

Connor grinned. "I wouldn't expect you to. If you like, we'll make sure to do lots of things wrong that you can tell us off for," he offered.

"So long as you promise to make it up to us when we get home," Spike added.

Lester dreaded to think what he'd let himself in for but he still didn't want to change his mind.

"Just try not to break anything expensive, OK?"

xxxxx

End.


	4. Going Home

A/N-  As with Chapter 3, please take note of the warnings/rating - sexual content, threesome, biting (vampire)- if you're not comfortable with this, it's your choice whether or not you read on.

* * *

Going home

It was six months since Spike arrived through the anomaly and he had accepted that he wouldn't be going home again. The anomaly showed no signs of reactivating, of opening up once more, but that bothered Spike a lot less than he would have expected. He liked it here; there were no demons and vampires out to kill him, no slayers after him. People actually wanted him around in this world, something which could not be said for Sunnydale. Sure, some people did, but that wouldn't last forever. Here, however, he felt useful as well as wanted. He worked with the ARC teams, going out to investigate any of the anomalies that opened at night and he enjoyed it. It was a long time since he'd just done normal, everyday things such as having a job and a boyfriend. Well, boyfriends. Lester and Connor; two of the last people he would have expected to be waking up to each day.

The three of them had been together for the past four months, unbeknown to their colleagues at the ARC. His and Connor's relationship was common knowledge but Lester was more wary. He believed that it would undermine his authority should his staff find out that he was sleeping not only with one of his scientists but also a vampire from a parallel world. When he put it like that, Spike had to admit that he might be right.

When the alarm sounded mid afternoon, Connor checked the readouts and frowned.

"The Forth Bridge," he said, looking around to Spike, who was sitting in the detector room, in his usual spot out of the light from the windows.

_Where I first came through_, Spike thought. "I wonder if it's the one that leads back to my world."

Connor shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

Spike rode with them to the anomaly site, safely concealed in the back of a blacked out Range Rover. Connor was silent on the trip, barely saying two words to anyone, even Lester. As soon as he heard that the anomaly had opened up again on the Forth Bridge, Lester had found an excuse why he needed to accompany them.

By the time they arrived, darkness had fallen and it was safe for Spike to get out of the car. He stood on the bridge and stared at the glittering light in the middle of the bridge, just as he remembered it.

Becker and his men finished arming themselves from the seemingly never-ending arsenal in the back of the car and then he began firing orders at them.

"Quinn, take Andrews and Dev- Abby, go with Neil and Luke. I want to be sure nothing came through," Becker told them. "Connor- get this thing closed. Spike, stay with him. Lester…?"

Becker paused, looked at Lester's irritated expression, and gave up. Instead he handed Connor a radio.

"Just in case," he said before jogging off to join Abby's search group.

Connor set up his equipment silently and began tapping away at the keys on his laptop. Before he could hit the last key, however, two people ran out of the anomaly. No, not people, he thought as his brain caught up with his eyes. They were about six feet tall with dark blue skin and silver eyes. They looked like people in Halloween masks, but they felt wrong when Connor looked at them.

"What on Earth…?" Lester asked as the two humanoid creatures fled.

Spike sighed. It seemed that his peaceful existence here was about to come to an end.

"They," he said, indicating to the running figures, "were Demons. And if I'm right, Soldier Boy and the gang are in trouble."

"Captain Becker's teams can handle themselves," Lester protested.

Spike shook his head. "You don't get it; bullets don't work against those things. They can throw fireballs, did you know that?"

Connor suddenly looked up, eyes wide, as something else came through the anomaly. Then his surprise became confusion as he stared at the tiny blonde woman in a short skirt and leather coat who had just appeared.

"Okay, that's not exactly what I was expecting."

The blonde was closely followed by a man in a tweed jacket with a bag over one shoulder and another woman, this time a redhead.

It was the redhead who first noticed that they had an audience. She tapped the blonde on the shoulder and she and the man turned together. The man groaned when his gaze settled on Spike.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" he asked with a groan. "I thought I'd seen the last of you for a while."

Spike folded his arms across his chest. "Nice to see you too, Watcher," he said sarcastically.

Connor finished closing the anomaly and went to stand by Spike, not liking how this man was speaking to him.

"Who are you?" He looked to Spike. "Who are they?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Willow, this is Giles and Buffy. Who-"

The blonde woman, Buffy, looked up and rolled her eyes. "Do you think we could do the meet-and-greet later? Like, maybe _after_ we've taken care of the demons. We need to find them."

Just then the radio Connor held crackled and he listened for a moment before replying.

"Done," he told the woman, pointing into the distance. "Your Demons are about two streets away in that direction. Our people have them cornered." He set off in the direction that Quinn told him but Giles hesitated.

"What about that?" he asked, pointing to the anomaly. "If that is some kind of spatial distortion, and it allowed both us and the Demons to walk through, then we must ensure that nothing else passes its threshold."

Spike waved a hand dismissively. "Connor sorted it. 'Sealed up tighter than a nun's-" He stopped, looked at the redhead, Willow's, disapproving frown and relented. "It's closed."

By the time they reached the church, they could hear gunfire from around the back and everyone rushed that way.

"Why do they always pick cemeteries?" Connor heard Buffy mutter. "Would it kill them to find a nice pretty park to fight in?"

He and Lester headed toward where the soldiers had the Demons cornered but Buffy stopped them.

"Stay out of the way, got it? I can handle these."

Lester narrowed his eyes at her, getting ready to argue, but Spike stepped in.

"She might not look that tough, be she's been dealing with these things for years," he said, adding softly, "Please, stay here. I don't want either of you to get hurt."

Connor nodded, seeing Lester reluctantly agree also, and moved back to stand with the two other newcomers. The redhead was watching them with a surprised expression on her face. She glanced over to where Spike and Buffy were now fighting the demons, hand to hand with a little help from Becker's teams, and then looked at Connor again.

"What?"

She smiled. "I've never seen him act like that before, well, except with Dawn. Dawn is Buffy's little sister," she explained. "We never did get around to proper introductions before, did we? I'm Willow Rosenberg, that's Rupert Giles. Over there is Buffy Summers."

"Connor Temple, and this is James Lester."

"Nice to meet you." Willow appeared utterly unconcerned with the fact that they were standing in a graveyard with Demons fighting with Vampires and tiny blonde women.

Speaking of which… "Spike's mentioned Buffy Summers before, I think," Connor mused. "He said she was a- what did he call her? A slayer?"

The man spoke then, finally taking his eyes off the fight. "Buffy is a Vampire Slayer," he informed them. "Though her duties regularly include other creatures such as Demons; she battles whatever the Hellmouth decides to throw at us."

When Buffy and Spike returned, the Demons now little more than patches of ash on the cemetery floor, Connor and Giles were deep in discussion. Giles told him all about the Hellmouth and the Demons; in return, Connor was just filling him in on the anomalies and dinosaurs. From what he heard, Sunnydale sounded like a dreadful place to live, Connor thought. Though when he mentioned it, Giles looked just as disturbed by the thought of dealing with dinosaurs on a daily basis.

As Spike approached, straightening his coat and dusting Demon ash from his sleeve, Connor looked up. He looked Spike over carefully, checking the Vampire for signs of injuries.

"I'm fine, Conn," Spike assured him.

Eager to find out more about the anomalies, Giles and Willow were easily persuaded to join them for a while in the local pub once Connor assured them that the anomaly looked as though it would be staying open for a while longer yet.

They went ahead and got a drink whilst Becker's men did a final sweep of the area before joining them. As they sat down in a quiet corner, Willow asked curiously,

"So, how long have you been here, Spike? I assume you came through the gateway, like we did."

He nodded. "It's called an anomaly. I've been here about six months; the anomaly closed and I was trapped here. Why?" he asked, smirking. "Did you miss me?"

Both Giles and Buffy snorted with laughter and they heard Giles mutter, "Like a hole in the head."

"Well, now you can come home again," Willow continued, telling him all about the things he'd missed since his disappearance.

Spike listened, occasionally asking about people he knew, laughing as Willow filled him in on the gossip. Sitting next to Lester, Connor listened miserably. Spike had become a big part of his and Lester's lives recently and he didn't want that to change. He could see that Spike missed home, though, and that worried him.

Connor glanced at Lester. "We're going to lose him, aren't we?" he asked sadly.

"I don't know," Lester told him, keeping his voice low, and Connor could see that he was dreading Spike's decision just as much.

Neither of them said anything, though. Both knew it wasn't fair to ask Spike to give up his world for them, not when this might be his only chance to get back there.

"You know, Dawn's been asking after you," Willow was saying.

Spike gave her a genuine smile. "How's the Little Bit doing?"

"Missing you."

The sound of voices coming into the pub alerted them of the soldiers returning, Danny and Abby with them. The moment they got close, Danny's face lit up and he made a bee-line for Buffy, smiling charmingly as he introduced himself.

Giles ran through the introductions again for the benefit of the soldiers, frowning at Danny as he flirted with Buffy. Lester sighed loudly.

"Quinn."

Danny reluctantly walked away from Buffy, sitting down next to Becker as the soldiers teased him. Buffy looked between Giles and Lester and pouted at them for spoiling her fun. The two men shared an exasperated look over her head.

"Do you ever feel like a parent trying to control a group of kindergarten children?" Giles asked as Buffy casually went to get another drink, just 'accidentally' sitting back down in the wrong seat, one that happened to be a little closer to Danny.

Lester surveyed the assorted ARC personnel, all laughing and chattering and, in Danny and Buffy's case flirting, and smiled.

"Frequently."

xxxxxxxxxx

Connor watched as Spike walked through the anomaly with Buffy, Willow and Giles and felt a tightness in his chest that he didn't want to put a name to. He half-listened to the soldiers, still teasing Danny as they packed up their gear and piled into two of the cars. They had managed to get rooms at a nearby hotel for tonight as it was too late to drive back. Becker called back to Abby, waiting for her to join them but she waved him off, saying she'd catch a lift back with Connor and Lester.

"Connor, we need to close the anomaly," she said as the cars drove away. He looked so miserable, had done ever since Spike stepped through the anomaly.

Connor shook his head. "Not just yet," he said, sitting down on the ground and staring at the anomaly. "What if he comes back and I've closed it?"

Abby nodded, looking surprised when Lester also sat down on the kerb beside Connor.

"Okay; we can leave it open a while longer I suppose," she said. Just in case, she went back to the car to collect the tranquiliser gun she had stashed in a case under the seat. Bullets might not kill a Demon, but the strong tranquiliser that they used on the larger dinosaurs might at least slow them down long enough to think of a plan B.

Four hours later, Abby leaned against Connor, her head on his shoulder as she dozed. Connor sighed; he was going to have to close the anomaly. He roused Abby so that he could get up and went to his laptop, typing in the command.

"Connor!"

Abby was on her feet now, the tranquiliser gun aimed. The anomaly shimmered slightly as a dark shape emerged.

"You want to put the gun away, luv?" Spike stood there with a duffel bag over one shoulder. He paused, taking in the expressions on their faces.

"What's wrong?" he asked Connor, seeing the mix of hurt and surprise in his wide brown eyes.

"I- _we-_ thought you'd gone."

"I just had to say goodbye to some people." He frowned. "Did you think I wasn't coming back?"

Connor shrugged his shoulders, his gaze directed on the ground by his foot.

"You daft bugger, come here." Spike pulled Connor into a tender kiss before taking Lester into a more discreet hug, lips brushing a kiss over the side of his neck where Abby wouldn't see.

"I'm not going anywhere without you two, got it?"

Connor finished closing the anomaly and they packed their gear away into the car, heading to the hotel where the rest of the team were. Everyone else had already gone to bed and so they went up too. Connor, Spike and Lester were sharing one of the two remaining rooms, leaving Abby with the last one.

"As the only woman here, it would not be right for you to have to share with any of us," Lester pointed out when Abby offered the spare bed in her room to one of them. "We shall manage."

Abby smiled. "That's very sweet of you, Lester. Thank you," she told him as she closed her room door.

Spike grinned. "Smoothly done. 'Wonder if she'd think you were such a gentleman if she knew the real reason?" he asked, locking their door once they were all inside.

Lester finished folding his suit and got into bed, the other two not far behind. It was a tight squeeze to fit the three of them into the double bed but no one objected. There was a sofa bed as well, but where was the fun in that?

Connor, pressed in the middle of Spike and Lester, yawned. "I can't believe I'm going to say it, but I'm too tired to enjoy this."

Spike pressed a little closer, kissing the side of Connor's neck, but barely got a reaction. He laughed. "Guess you should get some sleep. There's always tomorrow…"

xxxxxxxxx

Connor awoke as a warm, wet mouth closed around his cock. He blinked, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was really awake and not just dreaming but, sure enough, Spike's amused eyes looked up the length of his body as his tongue delivered another lick.

A touch turned his head and then Lester's mouth was on his own, kissing him as exploring hands roamed over his torso.

Connor lay back and enjoyed the sensations as the two men teased and touched and it wasn't long before his body tensed as his climax rushed over him. Spike smiled and moved off him, crawling up the bed to lay beside the two men.

"I think I could get used to waking up like that," Connor told him.

Spike nuzzled his neck. "I'm sure that could be arranged."

The younger man looked at him thoughtfully. "Go ahead, if you're hungry."

Spike smiled at how well Connor knew him now and moved closer but a hand on his arm stopped him.

"No. Take it from me."

Both men looked to Lester, surprised. Despite their time together, Lester had never taken that last step and allowed Spike to bite him. He always watched as Spike fed from Connor, seeing how much the young man enjoyed it, but had never dared to offer to take his place. Until now.

"You sure?"

Lester looked slightly embarrassed. "Yes. I see the look on your face each time he feeds from you, and I want to know what it feels like."

Spike leaned over to kiss him. "I won't hurt you, I promise."

"I know."

xxxxxxxxx

Lester sank himself into Connor, groaning as the younger man's welcoming body clenched around his dick. Below him, Connor's fingers curled into the sheets he lay on as he begged Lester to move.

"Do it, James," Spike whispered in his ear. "Look at him; laid out, ready and eager and waiting for you to fuck him."

Spike watched as Lester made love to Connor, gentle, relishing in each movement, and leaned over Lester's back.

Lester felt the sharp sting when Spike's fangs broke the skin of his neck, expecting… Well, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. All he could think was, _why the hell hadn't he allowed Spike to bite him sooner?_

Spike's mouth on his skin, the feel of him sucking gently as he drank, sent delicious shivers through him; it seemed to amplify every touch, every sensation that he already felt. Lester sensed Spike shift behind him, the mouth never leaving his neck as Spike slipped one slicked finger inside him.

Everything together was just too much for Lester and his climax overwhelmed him. The young man's body clenched around his cock as Connor came again also, his face pressed against the pillow, muffling the soft cry.

Spike released Lester's neck, licking over the wound to stop the bleeding as he eased himself into Lester's welcoming body.

xxxxxxxxx

Twenty minutes later, Connor heard a knock on the hotel room door and opened it to see Abby standing there. She eyed his mussed hair and the unfastened jeans balanced precariously on his hips.

"Did you only just get up? We're leaving in half an hour," she said. Looking past him, she asked, "Is everyone else ready? We're just going down to breakfast- Oh!"

Connor tugged the door in closer to block her view but she'd already caught a good look at Lester and Spike still in bed.

"What the hell?"

"Abby, please…"

"Don't you 'Abby, please' me, Connor Temple." Her voice was getting louder and he tried to shush her.

Connor saw Danny and Becker approaching from down the corridor, coming to collect them to go to breakfast. They called out to her, asking what the matter was. Connor reached out to drag her into the room before they got any closer.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, at the same time as Lester sat up and glared.

"Connor, why the hell is she in here?"

Abby tapped her foot impatiently, her hands on her hips. "Well?"

"Connor?"

Connor looked between them, not sure what to do next. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea to get her out of the corridor before her raised voice announced to the world what she had seen. On the other hand, Lester looked really pissed off and he really hated being the one who put that look on his face.

Spike got out of bed and came to stand by Connor. "Let him explain, eh?"

Abby's foot stopped tapping as her attention was focused elsewhere. Lester sighed loudly and reached over the side of the bed.

"Spike, if you would…"

Grinning unashamedly, Spike caught the jeans that were thrown at him and put them on.

"Happy now?" he asked, and then looked to Abby and back to Connor.

"When I opened the door, she saw you two," Connor told his two lovers. "She started asking questions and I thought it would be better to do that in private than in the middle of the corridor."

Spike nodded. "You were right. Okay, Abby; ask."

"Ask what?"

He shrugged. "Whatever questions are floating around in that pretty little head of yours. I'm guessing you have at least a hundred by this point."

For a long time she just stared at them, going from one to the other, her jaw dropping as Connor went to sit down on the bed beside Lester. He was talking softly to Lester, apologising. Lester smiled, his hand resting on Connor's arm as he promised he wasn't mad about it. There was a look on Lester's face unlike anything he ever showed at the ARC, a clear affection for Connor.

Somehow, that look made her anger vanish. Lester genuinely cared about both Connor and Spike, she could see that now, and so what did it matter what they did behind closed doors? When she really thought about it, she was more annoyed at Connor for not telling her than anything else.

"How long?"

"About four months," Connor told her.

"And you didn't say anything to me? I tell you everything, Connor." Abby sighed. "What did you think I'd do? Did you think I wouldn't approve or something?"

Lester finished tugging his trousers on under the bedcovers and stood up to fasten them.

"I asked Connor and Spike to keep this between ourselves," he said. "It was my decision; I did not, and still don't, want the rest of the staff gossiping about this."

Connor began to reach out to him, to thank him for stepping in and possibly saving his friendship with Abby, but stopped himself. He could see how uncomfortable Lester was right now- though the man was hiding it well- and he didn't want to make it any worse.

"I didn't mean to sound like I was judging you before; I was just surprised. I must admit that I'm still curious," Abby told them, "but I don't intend to run off and tell the world if you don't want me to. I wouldn't."

Lester looked relieved. "It's not that I'm ashamed of this, or of them," he insisted, "I'm not. But I think you can imagine the problems this knowledge could cause at the ARC. That's why I am asking you to keep your word and refrain from spreading what you know among the staff."

Abby nodded. "I promise," she said, still watching them curiously.

She allowed Connor to walk her to the door and let her out. Just before she left, she paused and looked up at him.

"Are you happy?" she asked quietly. "They didn't pressure you into this, did they?"

He glanced back at Spike and Lester. "No, and I'm happier than I have been for a long time."

"Good. Just remember, if either one of them hurts you, you know where to find me."

Connor smiled. "You know, I seem to remember us having almost this exact conversation before, when I started seeing Spike."

Abby smiled, giving him a hug. "Well, I'm just looking out for you; it's what best friends do."

"Thanks, Abbs."

Once she was gone he went back to the others.

"I'm sorry; I should have been more careful when I opened the door."

Lester sighed. "It was bound to happen eventually," he said. "In a way, I'm relieved. Abigail spends a lot of time at the flat; at least now, we won't have to hide when she's around." He stood decisively and tucked his shirt in neatly, picking up his tie.

"Now, if we don't get ready, we may have some more uninvited visitors," he told them. "And I do not intend to have that same conversation with Quinn."

Five minutes later they stood by the cars, waiting as the rest of the team finished their breakfast and left the hotel. Only Abby knew that they hadn't been waiting as long as Lester made out.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

End (for now)


	5. Careless Talk

Careless Talk

The call-out proved to be a waste of time. They had gone to investigate when a member of the public called the police, reporting a 'weird shiny thingy in the air'. Kind of like a mirror that's shattered and is just hanging there, the caller said. This had been closely followed by another phone call reporting a big animal on the loose in a nearby housing estate. They had left Connor racking his brains to figure out why the anomaly detector hadn't sounded, while Lester was fretting about what to do about the media attention this would gather.

They need not have worried. There were no signs of creatures or dinosaurs, no trace of the anomaly or of a disruption of any kind. It had to be a prank call but what bothered Becker was how the caller knew to describe an anomaly.

"I don't like this," he said as they got back into the cars. "Danny, call Lester, would you?"

"Why?"

Becker pulled the car out of the street and set off back to the ARC. "Something feels wrong."

Danny took out his phone and called in but when he spoke to Lester, everything seemed fine. At Becker's insistence, Lester agreed to have someone check the security system for any signs of disruption.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Connor turned and kicked the leg of the anomaly detector desk angrily, finding nothing at all wrong with it. A low chuckle sounded from the chair nearby and he turned to see Spike watching him, looking amused.

"Now what did that ever do to you?"

Connor scowled at the detector. "Bloody thing is working fine." At Spike's raised eyebrow, he clarified, "If it really was working fine then it should have known that there was an anomaly half an hour ago."

"Actually, there isn't anything wrong with it," a third voice chipped in. They both glanced up as Lester approached. "Quinn called; it appears that the anomaly was a hoax."

Connor didn't look any happier. "So you mean I just spent the last half hour running diagnostics for no reason?" He sighed. "Great. I need a cup of tea; anyone else?"

They both shook their heads and he stalked off in the direction of the staff room. Spike and Lester watched him go.

"He'll calm down soon," Spike said. "I'll go check on him in a minute."

"I wish that I could but…"

Spike smiled. "I know you do but we've got to keep up appearances, right?" He leaned a bit closer after making sure that no one was nearby and whispered, "You can cheer him up when we get home. How about that?"

Lester looked as though he wanted to tell Spike off for saying that here, in the ARC, but he didn't. Spike's grin widened.

"Maybe we could cheer him up together, put him in the middle…" Spike licked his lips suggestively, brushing his hand discreetly over Lester's hip. He turned and sauntered off in pursuit of Connor, leaving Lester silently cursing the damn vampire for getting him all hot and bothered and then just walking away.

Lester shook his head, forcing his eyes up from watching Spike's arse as he walked out of the room; it was so much simpler when he was just the boss, no ties to any of them. Then Spike and Connor wormed their way into his affections… He smiled, thinking. Had anyone told him before that night that he would now be sharing his life, and bed, with a vampire and a geeky scientist he would have laughed but he wouldn't change the past few months for anything.

With a sigh, Lester followed after Spike.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Spike reached the staff room and poked his head around the door, frowning when he found it empty. Connor's mug was still on the counter, a black one with a red Jurassic Park logo on the side, the milk out beside it and the kettle still steaming.

It wasn't unlike Connor to get sidetracked whilst he was in the middle of something else, but he usually went back to his office to work on it. This time he hadn't as Spike had walked down that way and hadn't passed him.

"Connor?"

Hearing a sound further along the corridor he turned and headed that way, wondering what on earth Conn had found that could be more interesting than a cup of tea.

"What the hell?"

At the end of the corridor, near to the door to one of the labs, a strange woman in a khaki shirt was crouched over Connor, who was lying on the floor. At first he thought she was checking to see if he was okay but when he got closer he saw her pick something up and put it into her pocket.

"Hey!"

The brown haired woman stood, turning on him. Connor was still sprawled on the floor but Spike couldn't get to him to make sure he was alright as the woman placed herself in front of him. Leaning to the side she pulled a knife out of her boot and took a fighting stance.

"Connor, you okay?" Spike called out, not daring to take his eyes off the woman.

To his relief, Connor had already dragged himself to his feet, leaning against the wall. He looked furious and a bruise was starting to form around his right cheekbone.

"I found her sneaking about but when I tried to stop her she attacked me. I hit my head on the wall."

Connor looked just the slightest bit embarrassed at admitting that he'd been decked by a woman but Spike could tease him later. Right now, he was just glad that Connor was alright.

"Get out of the way, blondie," she said. "This is none of your concern."

She made a move to get by him, lashing out with the knife when he got in her way, but Spike was faster. Feeling his face change, his fangs lengthen, he snarled and grabbed her. Pinning her against the front of him, one arm around her neck and the other taking hold of the hand still gripping the knife, he squeezed. He was pretty sure that he'd broken at least one bone in her hand by the time she finally relinquished the knife but she didn't let out so much as a whimper. Out of his eye corner he saw Connor heading for the door at the end of the corridor. He looked a bit shaky but he did manage to stumble to the door at the end. It took a couple of swipes of his security pass but he managed to get it open and leave.

"So, Lester's got himself a new guard dog, has he?" Helen asked, her voice rough as his arm clamped around her neck just a little bit tighter. "Doing a piss-poor job of it so far; I just walked straight in."

"I'm not anybody's guard dog, bitch," he retorted, keeping her attention on him so that she wouldn't see that Connor had gone. Hopefully to get someone with a big gun and no qualms about shooting women.

"Who the bloody hell are you, anyway?"

She huffed a little at that, as though offended that he didn't recognise her, and Spike smiled. He knew who she was from the descriptions. How could he miss the infamous Helen Cutter? Connor's description had been spot on- brown hair, brown eyes, slightly psychotic and with a penchant for clothing a size too small for her.

"So, you called in the fake anomaly?" He didn't really need to wait for a reply; the look on her face answered it for him. "Why? What were you after in the ARC?"

Ignoring him, she tried to twist around and elbow him in order to escape. She stopped when she felt the points of his fangs pressing into the skin of her throat.

Just then, Lester appeared with Connor at his side and a small army behind him.

"Put her down, Spike."

Spike released her, his fangs retracting as his face returned to normal, and she cast him a satisfied smirk. "Woof, woof."

The smirk became a scowl as she heard Lester add,

"You don't know where she's been; you might catch something."

Spike sniggered as he handed her over to the waiting soldiers. He could feel her glare on him as he walked away, moving to stand beside Lester. When he looked back, however, there was something else in her eyes. She was watching him curiously, then her gaze flicked over Lester and Connor and then back to Lester.

"No, not just a guard dog," she mused. She smiled again, any trace of anger or concern at being caught wiped away as she focussed on Lester. "Have you been a naughty boy, James?"

When he didn't answer, she continued. "So which one are you fucking- the geek? Not the vampire, surely. Oh, you are!" She laughed as Lester struggled to contain his anger and embarrassment, and Connor's cheeks flushed. Beside them, Spike glared menacingly. "Well, well, how the righteous have fallen; fine upstanding Sir James is fucking a vampire _and_ one of his underlings."

Spike could feel Lester shaking with pent up anger beside him, see the humiliation on his face as everyone else around them stared.

Helen, ever the opportunist, took advantage of her guards' lapse in concentration and shook them off, making a dash for the fire exit. The door banged back against the outside wall as the door alarms began wailing. The two guards shot out after her, followed by a couple more of the soldiers.

"Someone shut off that damned racket!" Lester snapped.

Reaching out to Lester, Spike found his hand shook off Lester's arm as the man turned on his heel and stormed away toward his office, refusing to meet anyone's eye along the way.

Connor edged closer to Spike as the people in the corridor all turned to them for explanations. He could see Danny and Sarah at the back of the crowd, obviously arriving just in time to hear Helen's revelation. Becker and his team were there too, as were about half of the lab techs, all of whom had emerged when they heard the commotion, coming to see what was happening.

"Oh my God!"

"You two, and Lester?"

"How long-"

"Can't believe it-"

In the end, it was Abby who shut them up. She elbowed her way through the crowd and glared at them all, hands on her hips.

"Don't you people have anything better to do than gossip?" she demanded. "Instead of poking your noses where they aren't welcome, why don't you bugger off and try and work out how Helen managed to get past all of you. Leave Connor and Spike alone."

Everyone, even the soldiers, began to edge away, looking concerned. They knew that Abby protected Connor like a mother bear would a cub and while she might not be able to kick their arses completely, she'd give it a damn good and painful try. By the time the techs and soldiers had gone, likely to chat and speculate amongst themselves- at least they weren't harassing Connor and Spike any more- only six people remained in the corridor. Abby ushered them all into the staff room where Becker put the kettle on and got some mugs out.

"What happened?" Abby asked, sitting down in front of Connor and gingerly reaching out to touch his injured cheek.

He looked embarrassed. "I came to get a cup of tea and I heard someone in the lab at the end of the corridor. I knew that no one was working in there so I had a look and I saw Helen leaving. I tried to stop her. Stupid, really."

"She hit you?"

Connor nodded. "She backhanded me and I tripped and hit my head."

"Any idea what she was looking for?"

Spike smiled and reached into his coat. "This," he said, tossing a small black metal device about the size of a mobile phone to Abby. They had found it at an anomaly site a few days earlier but so far, despite Connor's best efforts, they hadn't been able to get it to work to find out what it did. "I saw her stick it in her pocket out in the corridor before I grabbed her."

"So you picked _her_ pocket?"

He nodded. "I bet she didn't even feel me take it; she was too busy wondering if I was gonna bite her." He looked around at the sceptical faces and scrunched up his nose in disgust.

"You really thought I'd bite her? Ughh, please," he said with a shudder.

"Well you _do_ have to drink blood. I thought maybe you might have had a little snack…"

"I have better taste than that," Spike informed Sarah, sounding offended. "I'm very particular about what goes in my mouth, I'll have you know!"

Danny and Abby managed about two seconds before they started to snigger. Spike sighed when he realised what he'd said.

"That's not what I meant. You lot have bloody filthy minds, you know that?"

Danny, still grinning, got up and closed the staff room door.

"Right, jokes and gossip aside, I want to know if Helen's little rant had any truth to it," he said. "I'm not asking so that I can go off and tell everyone else, but I think we need to know if there's anything that might possibly disrupt this team."

Connor knew they were right, and he saw that everyone else agreed as well. Even Abby nodded. He sighed.

"Just give us a minute, okay?" he asked, grabbing Spike's coat sleeve and leading him out of the room. This wasn't something they could decide on their own; no way were they saying anything without talking to Lester first.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Ten minutes later, the team all sat in Lester's office while the man himself fidgeted in a very un-Lester-like way.

"Do you want me to tell them?" Spike asked softly from his seat beside Lester's desk.

Lester shook his head and offered the vampire a faint smile. He turned to the team, all waiting patiently, expectant expressions on their faces.

"What Helen so delicately announced in the corridor," he said, still not looking at them, "was correct. Connor, Spike and I have been engaged in a relationship for some time now. I do, of course, understand that you will feel uncomfortable with this and I shall see to it that someone else takes over supervision of your team as soon as possible."

"What? No!" Lester frowned and Sarah continued. "We don't want someone else!"

"But it would be inappropriate for me to continue considering my involvement with two of my team members," he pointed out.

"Oh, bollocks to all that nonsense," Danny interjected. "Are we shocked? Hell, yeah. Are we pissed that you didn't tell us? Certainly," he said. "That doesn't mean we want you to quit."

"Quinn's right," Becker said. "Provided this will not interfere with the running of this team, I see no problem."

"And it's not like they get any favouritism," Sarah added. "If anything, Connor seems to get into trouble more often lately."

"You know I'm fine with it," Abby added quietly, causing Danny to frown at her.

"You already knew?" he asked accusingly.

Connor immediately jumped to her defence. "Don't be mad at Abby; we made her promise not to say anything. And it's not like we intended to tell her, but she kind of, well, she found out on her own." Seeing Danny's still confused expression, he sighed. "She walked in on us when Spike and Lester were in bed at the hotel, you know, that one near the Forth Bridge a few weeks ago."

Now they all turned to stare at Abby as Spike rolled his eyes at Connor. "Nice going, genius. You couldn't have just said that she knew and leave it at that?"

"Sorry," Connor mumbled. "You know I talk too much when I get nervous."

Lester decided that the best thing would be for all of them to think on it that night and then, tomorrow morning, he would speak to them. He would be willing to transfer command of the team to someone else should any of them decide it would be best, or allow any of them a transfer if they wanted. The team, however, were having none of it.

"We don't need to think about it," Danny said, looking around at the others. "Show of hands: anyone have a problem with any of this?"

Not one hand was raised.

"It may not be as simple as that," Lester told them. "The funding committee and my superiors, should they find out about this, would have me moved before I could even offer my defence."

"Well they'll have to go through us first," Sarah informed him.

Lester smiled, genuinely touched by their support. He had expected looks of disappointment and horror, being reminded that he was breaking the rules, but no one made any comments like that. Sure he'd still have to deal with the general staff but his primary team were fine.

"Thank you, all of you. I appreciate it."

Danny smiled. "We know."

So, that evening, back in the safety of Lester's flat, Spike curled up against Lester's body in bed, Connor's arms wrapped around Lester's waist as he pressed up against the other man's back.

"It'll be okay," Spike said. "They're good people and they like you, despite what you sometimes think. They said it themselves that they have no problem with any of this."

"I don't wish to talk about this any longer," Lester informed them dismissively.

Connor raised his head and glanced over at Spike, the pair sharing a concerned look. He could feel Lester trying to distance himself from them, his usual ease around them slowly vanishing, and he knew that Spike felt it too.

"James, please don't do this," he said.

"Do what?"

"Don't reject us just because you're worried about what everyone else will think," Spike answered. "If you want out of this relationship then say so, but make sure it's for the right reasons. Don't push us away because of what happened today."

"You don't really want to leave us, do you?" Connor asked quietly.

Lester sighed and turned enough to give the younger man a hug. "No, Connor, I don't. I just don't like having my personal affairs gossiped about, having them all looking at me, wondering and speculating."

"So you still want us?" Spike asked, looking for confirmation.

"Of course I do. How could I not want the two of you?"

Connor heaved a relieved breath. "Good," he joked. "Because we wouldn't have just given up. Vampires and computer nerds? We make _excellent_ stalkers."

xxxxxxxx

End.


	6. A Close Call

A Close Call

Lester was seriously considering introducing the man in front of him to an anomaly by way of a boot up his arse. The jumped-up accountant had been wittering on for the past ten minutes about the ARC's budgets, and how they could reduce their expenditure. Unfortunately, the man had no clue at all about why most of the equipment was needed, having never been in the path of a herd of pissed off dinosaurs or trying to close an anomaly before whatever was on the other side came through and caused a public-relations nightmare by eating someone. He hadn't needed to be fixed up in the expensive medical facilities here, for injuries that you couldn't exactly go to the nearest casualty department with. Lester smiled to himself at the notion of throwing the man though the next anomaly that opened up; let him see how many corners he wanted to cut when he was standing in the real life equivalent of Jurassic Park.

He sighed. As tempting as it was, he didn't think that the rest of the review committee would appreciate it quite as much as him. Lester hated these reviews. The small group disrupted everything when they arrived, wanting to look into every nook and cranny, wanting to check the validity of any expenses and orders, checking the animal holding areas, harassing the staff. This morning they had questioned Becker about his team, assessing the armoury and questioning everything from the weapons to their training facilities. It was a wonder that Becker had managed to keep his cool with them; even the usually unflappable soldier looked ready and willing to commit murder.

Then they wanted Lester to try and reduce their energy consumption at the ARC, looking annoyed when he pointed out the impracticality of their ideas. The animals needed their environment keeping regulated, as did the humans who worked here. The Anomaly Detector, he patiently explained, could not be made more energy efficient. He dreaded suggesting that one to Connor; it was a good thing that they had an anomaly alert an hour ago, effectively getting Connor out of the way before they could have a chat to him about it.

It was almost 9pm when they made their way back to Lester's office and he looked longingly out at the darkness outside. He should be at home by this time, but home time looked a long way away at this point.

Lester was glad that his secretary chose that moment to interrupt, looking apologetic. He could have hugged her.

"I'm sorry Sir James, but Connor is on line one. He sounds distressed," she said, glancing at the four committee members.

Connor wouldn't call unless he knew it was urgent, especially when he knew that Lester was still busy with the committee. He excused himself and picked up the call.

"Connor?"

"James, Spike's been hurt. It's bad; we're on the way back to the ARC now. He won't wake up-"

Lester stood up and was half way around his desk before he even ended the call.

"I'll meet you at the door," he said. "He'll be fine, Connor." Lester hung up the phone and only then remembered the committee, all watching him with a mixture of curiosity and exasperation that he was leaving. "I have to go. One of my team is hurt."

He didn't bother to wait for a reply, just left the room. As he reached the outer office, Louisa, his secretary, stopped him.

"It's Spike," Lester told her. "They're bringing him in; he's injured."

"Go," she said, indicating to the office and his guests. "I'll keep that lot busy and out of the way."

Lester nodded and hurried off to meet the incoming vehicle.

xxxxxxxxxx

(Twenty minutes earlier)

"Connor, look out!"

Connor didn't even have the chance to take a step before he felt someone push him to the side. He stumbled and looked back in time to see the Sabre Toothed Tiger take a swipe at Spike, knocking him to the ground. Before he could get up, the cat pounced.

There was a second one now bounding toward them, snarling at the first. Becker and Neil were both shooting and he saw one of the cats drop as he attempted to distract the first. He had to get it away from Spike; the Vampire wasn't moving at all, just lying on the ground, the grass around him dark with blood. Connor could see that the front of his leather coat was shredded, the gashes across his chest and stomach bleeding freely.

The cat started to head for him and Becker shouted a warning seconds before they fired on it.

As soon as it was down, Connor rushed to Spike. He started to check for a pulse, panicking when he couldn't find one, and then remembering that Spike didn't have one in the first place. What was he meant to do?

"Spike? Come on, please just open your eyes or something. Spike?"

Becker called in for backup to deal with the two dead creatures whilst Neil came to attend to Spike.

"He pushed me out of the way," Connor told the medic, unable to stop the tears that began streaking down his cheeks. "It should have been me that it attacked. Oh God. If he dies…"

Neil leaned over and pinched Connor on the arm, hard enough to make him yelp.

"Pack it in, Connor. Right now, we need to help him. I don't need you falling apart on me as well."

Connor glared at him, ready to snap at him for being so insensitive, and realised that it had been intentional. He nodded.

"Okay, so what do we do?"

Neil shook his head. "I don't know. They don't exactly teach you how to treat Vampires at medical school. If he was human, I'd say we needed to stop the bleeding and disinfect the wounds. He's lost a lot of blood so we'd give him a transfusion."

Seeing that it wouldn't hurt, Neil got to work cleaning the wounds and closing them as best he could with the limited medical supplies in the field kit. He'd had to remove the ruined shirts and coat, letting him see the full extent of the vampire's injuries. It wasn't pretty.

"I can't give him any kind of drugs as I don't know how they'll react with his body chemistry," he said. "We need to get him back to the ARC; I can try and transfuse him, replace what he's lost."

They got spike into the back of the car, laid out on the back seat, his head in Connor's lap. Connor took his jacket off and, before they could stop him, reached over and took the knife that was strapped to Becker's thigh.

"What are you doing?" Becker demanded, trying to snatch the knife back.

"Giving him blood," Connor said, swiping the blade over his wrist. He whimpered as it sliced into his skin but didn't stop, gently forcing Spike's mouth open and letting the blood drip in.

Neil climbed between the seats to crouch in the foot well in front of them and began to massage Spike's throat, inducing his reflexes to swallow.

"Captain? We need to get going."

Becker drove as fast as he could without getting pulled over for a speeding ticket. He didn't fancy trying to explain why they had a comatose man in the back seat, being force fed blood, to a traffic cop.

Ten minutes later, Neil reached over and took the knife from Connor.

"You're losing too much blood."

Connor looked down at Spike. He still hadn't woken up.

"We're about five minutes away from the ARC," Becker reported from the front seat as he took another corner at tyre-squealing speed.

Neil handed Connor a mobile phone after wrapping a cloth around his wrist. "Call Lester and let him know we're on our way in," he said softly. "He's going to want to know." When Connor began to protest, looking down at the unconscious vampire, Neil picked up the knife. "He can take some from me."

Connor dialled the number, not taking his eyes off Spike. "James, Spike's been hurt…"

xxxxxxxxxx

Lester saw the assorted military personnel and staff who met the vehicle take a second look at their Sergeant holding his bleeding wrist over Spike's mouth. They may be used to the idea of having a vampire on the team, even like having him around as a friend, but seeing him being fed was different. Neil pulled his arm away and quickly bandaged it as the others got spike out of the vehicle and onto a stretcher to take to the medical bay.

He saw Connor standing nearby in his bloodstained jacket.

"Connor, are you hurt?" Lester asked.

The younger man shook his head. "That's Sp- It's not my blood," he said, wrapping his arms around himself. He shivered, despite the warm temperature in the ARC.

Uncaring of who was watching at this point, Lester enveloped Connor in a tight hug before leading him to catch up with the others as they transferred Spike to a bed in one of the medical bays.

Neil checked the wounds again, carefully removing the dressings. "They're starting to heal; I think the blood is working."

"Then he needs more." Connor started to roll his sleeve up again, ignoring Neil's protests that he had lost too much already.

"Take it from me instead," Dev offered. He still looked a little wary but he offered his arm anyway. Behind him, from the doorway, Danny, Becker and Abby all volunteered as well but Lester had already removed his suit jacked and rolled his sleeve up.

Using the same technique as the others had earlier, he fed Spike.

"Come on, Spike," he muttered. "Stop being so bloody stubborn and open your eyes. Please."

Beside him, Connor huddled against his side, his hand on Spike's arm as though needing to keep touching him to make sure he was still there.

"He swallowed!" Connor said, the relief clear in his voice. "He did! I saw his throat move."

No one else had noticed and now they all watched anxiously, a sigh of relief going through the onlookers as he moved again, this time opening his mouth wider. His fangs extended and Lester lowered his arm so that the vampire could feed from him properly. Connor saw him wince as Spike's fangs sank into his flesh and reached his free hand to take Lester's. It was bound to hurt as Spike was in no condition to make it feel better, to mask the bite with more pleasurable sensations. He could, though, but not with everyone else here. He needed the others to leave them for a while.

Neil obviously had the same idea, although probably not for the same reasons.

"Right, everyone who doesn't need to be in here, outside please," he announced, ushering them toward the door. "I need to work and Spike needs to recover and that's not going to happen with a room full of people."

Abby insisted on staying, refusing to leave her best friend and his lover, and so when it was just her, Lester, Connor and Neil left, the medic turned to them.

"That's better. I thought we could do with a bit of peace."

Connor nodded. "Thanks."

"Do you want Abby and me to go too?" he asked, noticing the awkward glances that Connor was casting at Lester. "I'm not entirely comfortable leaving him, or you whilst he isn't able to control how much blood he's taking from you, but I will if you want."

After a quick look at Lester, Connor said they could stay. He felt happier having the medic around at the moment, just in case, and Abby… Well, if they needed another donor, he knew that Abby would be willing.

"Just make sure nothing goes further than this room," he warned.

They both nodded, and Connor turned back to Lester. He could see that the bite was hurting and did the quickest thing he could think of to distract him. He knew that Neil and Abby were watching them, looking on curiously, but he didn't care as he covered Lester's mouth with his own. Lester responded, kissing him eagerly as Connor's arm snaked around his waist, dragging him closer. It worked, the sting of the vampire's bite easing into the pleasant haze of arousal and desire as Connor's hands roamed lower to grab at his arse, pulling him close so that their bodies were connected from chest to thighs.

When Lester staggered a little, Connor caught him, keeping him balanced as Neil rushed to them.

"Spike, you need to stop now," Connor said, leaning closer to him. "Spike!"

Lester's wrist was released and Spike's eyes finally blinked open, squinting up at them against the bright lights. Connor grinned and pressed a kiss to his blood smeared lips.

"Damn, you had us worried for a while."

Spike struggled to sit upright, hissing in pain as the partially healed slashes across his torso pulled.

"Stay still," Neil ordered, hands on his shoulders to press him back to the bed again. "Now that you're awake, you can tell us what we need to do to completely heal you. The blood you've been given has started working but how long does it take? Do you need more? What kinds of painkillers can you take, if you even need them? When you're better, we're going to have do a full set of medical records for you so we know what to do in future."

"I don't need meds. They won't work on me anyway- only thing that does is booze," he said. "Which would be nice, right about now." Seeing no bottle or hip flask being produced he sighed. "I'll be fine by morning; it'll take a bit more blood, though. 'Body's using it up ten times faster than usual to fix me."

Abby stepped forward. "If you need more, you can take it from me; they've all given you quite a bit already."

Spike frowned for a moment and then looked around at the bandages on their arms, glancing up at Neil.

"You let me feed from you?"

The medic smiled. "Yes. Quinn, Dev, even the Captain, were all ready and willing to donate if you needed it."

"Thank you. And I appreciate the offer, Abby, but I'll be fine until morning. That's when I'll need more and, by that time, I hope I'll be at home in bed."

Abby grinned. "Deal; that was an invite, wasn't it?" she teased. "Aw, damn. I was looking forward to it, especially after watching Connor and Lester before."

xxxxxxxxxxx

It was only as Lester settled into his bed, arms carefully wrapped around Spike so as not to aggravate any of his injuries, that he remembered what he had been doing before that phone call.

"Bugger."

Connor climbed into bed behind him and dragged the covers over them all. "What's the matter?"

"I left the review committee members in my office with Louisa. Poor woman."

"Well, you can't do much about them now, can you?"

Lester sighed. Connor was right. He had abandoned his visitors with his secretary. This didn't bode well for their final assessment, he thought. He would attempt to smooth things over tomorrow morning.

Well, afternoon.

After he'd had a nice long sleep and some quality time with his lovers.

xxxxxxxxxx

The following day, he reached his office at around mid day, having been stopped by everyone he passed as they enquired after Spike. He and Connor had taken the morning off to look after him, though Spike didn't need it. The vampire had healed completely and so 'looking after him' had been more of an excuse to stay in bed than anything else. He smiled at the memory as he walked up the ramp to his office. As he passed Louisa's desk, she looked up.

"How is he?"

"Completely recovered; it is amazing how fast he heals. He and Connor are down in the staff room."

She smiled. "I'm so glad he's alright." There was a pause. "The review committee are in your office," she told him, looking nervous though he already knew they would be here. "I gave them all of the information they asked for yesterday, and they seemed happy."

Lester thanked her. He straightened his tie, made sure his jacket sleeve covered the bandaged-up bite marks on his wrist, and put on his poker face before stepping into his office. All three members of the review committee sat patiently, waiting for him.

"Sir James," Mr Parks stood to shake his hand. "How is Spike? I understand that he is making a good recovery."

"He is, though he had us concerned for a time," Lester told him, sitting down behind his desk. "Gentlemen, I would like to offer my apologies for leaving so abruptly yesterday," he began, but Mr Shadid stopped him.

"No need to apologise; I would have done the same in your situation." Lester frowned, wondering what he meant by that. The man noticed his suspicion and smiled reassuringly. "We are aware of your relationship concerning this man, and Mr Temple." Seeing Lester's hastily disguised shock, he said, "There was a lot of concern voiced about how yourself and Mr Temple were coping, as well as for Spike's wellbeing. We overheard some of it."

Lester eyed them uneasily. "So you are planning to use this information to do what? Ask me for my resignation? Close the project?"

Mr Parks shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. I merely wished to inform you that we know, just as we are aware of Spike's rather unique true nature."

"If you intend to try and remove Spike in order to study him, you will have a fight on your hands-"

Mr Shadid frowned, looking confused. "No, you misunderstand. Our purpose in returning today was to complete our assessment, nothing more."

"From what we have seen here," Mr Parks informed him, "The project is progressing extremely well. It is true that personal relationships tend to become complicated but nothing I have seen here would be cause for concern. Sir James, our assessment requirements are specific; I see no reason why additional information should be supplied."

The man next to him, the accountant who had pissed Lester off so much the previous day, rolled his eyes. "What he's trying to say is that this conversation won't be in the report."

The three men asked their final questions and checked a few more things before Mr Parks closed his laptop and packed it away. Lester would get the final report in a few weeks time but, they assured him, their initial impressions were favourable. It seemed that their thoughts on how to economise had been forgotten, the incident yesterday making them see that everything they did was necessary, that they really did need all of the equipment and personnel.

As soon as they were gone, Lester headed for the staff room to check on Connor and Spike. They were surrounded by the anomaly team and most of Becker's men, as well as a few of the lab techs. When they saw him approach, the crowd parted to let him through.

"How did it go?" Connor asked. "Were they mad?"

Lester shook his head. "Quite the opposite," he said. "It appears to have gone rather well. And now it's over for another year."

At that moment, the anomaly detector began wailing and everyone hurried out of the room, abandoning half-finished cups of coffee and tea. Lester headed back to his office, drawing all of the blinds so that Spike could stay with him in there; it was mid day and so Spike couldn't go with the team, no matter how much he wished he could. Lester left the office and returned a few moments later with a large box, which he handed to Spike.

"What's this?"

"I got you something," Lester told him, sitting in the padded chair next to Spike as the other man opened it and lifted out the contents. "Since yours got ruined."

Spike pulled out the coat and tried it on; the black leather trench coat was a perfect fit. He went over to Lester's chair and sank down onto it, straddling Lester's lap, his arms around his lover's neck, and leaned in for a long kiss.

"Thank you, James."

xxxxxxxx

End.

(for now)


	7. Uninvited Guests

First, a bit of background for anyone who doesn't know Angel/Buffy. Angel, when he was first turned, was a ruthless, vicious vampire who took pleasure in torturing and killing anyone who got too close. Then, one day, he killed a Gypsy girl and in revenge, her tribe cursed him. They gave him back his soul and therefore his conscience, guilt and regret for everything he'd done. The curse had a catch, though; if he experienced one moment of pure happiness, he'd lose his soul again and turn back into that vicious killer. Unfortunately this happened after he had sex with Buffy and got his 'moment of true happiness'. His soul was later restored using magic.

For the purposes of this fic, I'm pretending that, in restoring his soul, they took away the get-out clause and he can't lose it again.

* * *

Uninvited Guests

Connor watched as the little creature they had just released scampered off after the first one, vanishing into the shadowy undergrowth. It was satisfying to see them put back where they belonged, unlike so many who were stuck in the menagerie at the ARC.

"Time to go."

He looked around as Abby spoke, nodding and following her back to the anomaly site. Mark and Dev, his and Abby's Special Forces chaperones for the trip, had already gone, carrying the heavy wire cages back up the hill.

He was almost there when heard the sound behind him. He turned a split second before someone raced out of the trees and jumped him, knocking him down. They rolled a few times down the hillside until they came to a stop and Connor found himself pinned to the ground. Connor fought to get free but the man who had attacked him was strong and he couldn't shake him. He couldn't even call out for help, the arm to his throat crushing his vocal chords.

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps and then his assailant was knocked away from him. Scrambling back to his feet and backing away, coughing, he turned to see a man with dark hair, wearing a long black coat crouched nearby. There was a fresh wound on his left temple, which explained why he had released Connor so abruptly. Whilst he was still, Connor took in the sight before him. The man was battered and bruised, his shirt shredded down one side of his chest and a piece of cloth tied around a wound on his upper thigh. The look in his eyes was what scared Connor the most; he'd seen it before in the eyes of wounded creatures, the look that said they would attack in a heartbeat if anyone came too close.

Quite what Connor had been expecting to see, he wasn't sure, but certainly not this man. The fact that another human was here at all surprised him. Unless he was one of Helen's lackeys. Obviously the others had the same thought, weapons out, ready to shoot if necessary.

"Who are you?" Lt Andrews demanded, keeping his weapon trained on the stranger. "How did you get here?"

The stranger's eyes narrowed as he looked around at them and then he pounced again, ignoring the guns. This time, Connor caught sight of his face altering as he did so.

"He's a vampire!"

The stranger turned on him at his shout, heading his way again, and Connor picked up a branch from the ground and angled the broken, jagged end at the vampire's chest.

"Back off! I'll stake you if I have to."

The man stopped. Andrews moved in a little closer, as did Dev, guns still drawn although they were treating him with more caution than before. Making sure they kept a safe distance from him, remembering how fast Spike could move when he wanted to.

"How did you get here? Is anyone else here with you?"

Something in the man's demeanour changed then and the look in his eyes softened, turning to something closer to relief as he shook his head. "Just me. You're the first people I've seen in… I don't know how long I've been here. You mind putting the guns away?" Seeing the look on the soldiers' faces, he sighed. "Guess not."

Abby, however, wasn't watching the stranger. She was staring out into the undergrowth. Every now and then they heard creatures calling to one another, faint animal noises that were too far away to worry about. Now, Abby looked concerned as she stood still, listening.

"Guys, I think there's something coming."

Leaving Dev to guard the stranger, Mark and Connor both joined her. She was right; there was definitely something moving and it was bigger than the two creatures they had released minutes earlier. As the noises began getting closer, Lt Andrews began snapping orders. He wanted everyone back through the anomaly before anything bigger headed for them; he'd seen the wounds on the stranger and no way had they been done by the little herbivorous creatures.

"Let's move, people."

The moment they were back on home ground, Connor sealed the anomaly and they all heaved a sigh of relief.

"What do we do with him?" Dev asked his lieutenant, indicating to the man he still had under guard.

"Take him back with us," Mark said. "Lester will want to talk to him."

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

When they stepped through the anomaly Becker and Luke were waiting, alerted by Mark that they were bringing a prisoner. As soon as Dev brought him through, their guns were trained on the stranger. He didn't look particularly concerned, probably as the guns wouldn't kill him, Connor thought. They'd hurt like hell, but not kill him. In fact, he hadn't reacted to much of anything since Connor had threatened to stake him.

Lester had accompanied the team, stating that he wished to get out of the office more and experience what the team did, and now he stood off to one side with Spike.

"Spike? Oh great; like my day couldn't get any worse!"

Lester turned to the blonde vampire standing next to him and frowned. "You know him?"

Spike looked around at the soldiers, and more importantly their guns, and his eyes lit up.

"If I say no, will you shoot him?"

The dark haired vampire growled at him. "Spike!"

Lester just gave him an irritated look and Spike sighed. "Worth a try," he said. "Fine- I know him. His name's Angel."

As the guns were put away at Lester's instruction, everyone piled back into the vehicles to return to the ARC. Once they arrived, Angel was summoned to Lester's office. Spike had stomped away as soon as they got back, heading for Connor's office and slamming the door. Connor had tried to stop him but had earned himself a glare, deciding to give the vampire a few minutes to cool off before going to talk to him. Instead, he followed Angel and Lester to Lester's office.

"So, if Spike knows you, I presume that you come from his world, but both times that anomaly has opened in the same place. You ended up 35 million years into the past," Lester said, skipping the pleasantries and sitting down behind his desk. "How did you get there? Did you go through a different anomaly?"

Angel frowned. "What's an anomaly?"

"Like the shiny thing we brought you back here through," Connor supplied helpfully, taking a seat.

Angel shook his head. "No, it wasn't one of those. It was a witch." He sighed. "God, I hate witches."

_Angel heard the words and felt the pull of the spell. She told him it would send him into the hell dimensions but something went wrong. Maybe it was the fact that he had a soul that disrupted the magic; whatever it was, he was grateful. Well he had been until he realised that instead of hell, he'd landed in the middle of the wilderness with a dinosaur about to treat him as a midnight snack._

_Maybe the witch had sent him to the right place after all. That world had become his own personal hell; spending his days trying to find somewhere that could shelter him from the daylight and protect him from becoming lunch, and the nights trying to find something to eat that didn't have longer fangs than he did._

"What date is it?" he asked suddenly.

"January sixteenth," Lester told him.

For a moment, Angel was silent. "It was November fifteenth, the last time I looked. I was in that place for two months. Wait, you said 35 million years into the past. If it was, then how did you get there?" he asked Connor.

"Through the anomaly," Connor told him.

"So a portal opened and you just went wandering through?" Angel asked incredulously.

"It's kind of what we do," Connor told him. "It's not the first time we've been thought one."

"I've seen portals before but never one like that before."

"You won't have," Connor told him. "The place you know as home is some kind of parallel dimension. We checked when Spike first got here and where you came from just doesn't exist here."

Angel took this news with unexpected calmness. Maybe his time stuck in the past had already brought on his acceptance that he wouldn't be going home again. Lester asked him more questions but it seemed that Spike's reluctant vouch for him was enough. The vampire still didn't look especially happy to see Angel but he had reassured them that Angel was "like a soddin' saint these days" and therefore unlikely to hurt them.

"Perhaps you'd like to get cleaned up?" Lester offered. "I can arrange some clothing for you, provided you don't mind borrowing for a while. At least until we can get you something more suitable."

Angel looked down at his torn and bloodied clothes; his wounds had already begun to heal but it would be nice to get clean again. He nodded gratefully. "That'd be good. Thanks."

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

"It's always the same. I'm doin' fine and then Mr. Look-at-me-I'm-so-tortured appears …" Spike mumbled. "Bloody Angel, always turning up where he's not sodding well wanted! We should have pushed his arse back through that anomaly!"

Lester listened to Spike's rant and frowned. "You know he wouldn't have survived much longer if we'd left him where he was."

They had both gone to find Spike as soon as Angel was been led off toward the showers by Becker, and they found him pacing in Connor's office, muttering to himself. Some of his references to Angel were rather colourful and anatomically impossible, Lester had pointed out to him as they walked into the room. Spike had stopped in mid sentence and scowled at them both before starting again, this time directing his rant at them when Lester had mentioned his idea of allowing Angel to remain at the ARC.

"And that's my problem, how, exactly?"

"Spike…"

"It's just like it always is; he turns up and takes over," Spike continued. "Then its 'goodbye Spike, Angel's here now and he's just so bleedin' perfect'."

Connor glanced at Lester, seeing that his lover was just as confused. Did Spike really think that they would cast him aside, just like that? No, he realised, he didn't, but they could both see how much Angel got to him and Connor could sympathise. How many years had he spent in school or university being the clever kid, useful as long as someone wanted help with their work but knowing that as soon as anyone cooler came along, he would be forgotten. From the little Spike had told him of his past, Angel was always the one in charge, the self-appointed leader, and Spike was just expected to follow him.

"He's never going to take your place here, if that's what you're worried about," Lester told him.

"James is right," Connor agreed, giving Spike's hand a squeeze. "This is your home now; you were here first."

Spike looked a bit happier at that thought. "Yeah, I was. That means I've got seniority, right? He's got to do what I tell him. Neat!"

"Good to see that you're being so mature about this," Lester observed, smiling. His expression turned serious. "If it means that much to you, I won't extend the invitation for him to remain here. You mean more to me- to us- than he does."

As Connor nodded in agreement, Spike stared at them both in wonder as though not really believing that they would choose him over Angel. He sighed.

"Nah, its fine. Let him stay," he said.

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

As temporary lodgings for Angel, he had been given a bed in the bunk room that the on call team sometimes used. These were nothing more than two four-bed dormitories but Angel seemed happy with it.

"Believe me, after where I've been sleeping for the past month and a half, this place is like the Hilton," he told Lester.

Lester had also used the company expenses account for some more suitable clothing for him, rather than the borrowed items he had been wearing, and it gave Angel a feeling that at least part of his life was returning to normal. He still couldn't go home or erase the past months from his memory, but this was a start.

They had given him the entire room to himself for a bit of privacy, but Spike didn't care about that. He wandered in the following evening and dropped down onto the bunk opposite to where Angel was quietly reading.

"What do you want?"

Spike just shrugged his shoulders. "Can't a bloke just come in for a chat?"

"We don't chat, Spike."

Angel tried to ignore him in the expectation that he would go away but when he looked around, the bleached-blonde fly in his ointment was still there, boots up on the bed.

"So what did you do to the witch?" he asked. Angel frowned and Spike smirked. "Must have pissed her off somehow for her to hit you with magic that powerful."

Angel didn't reply, merely gave him a look that quite clearly said 'bugger off, I don't want to talk about this'. Not that Spike paid any attention to it.

Spike's smirk widened. "That means it's personal. What'd you do, shag her and forget to call? No, can't do that because of that pesky curse, can you? Must have turned her down in the first place since you couldn't, _you know_."

Angel put down his novel and folded his arms across his chest defensively. "I could have!"

"How? Have you forgotten that whole 'shagging equals soulless' thing?"

"No," Angel told him, sounding smug. "Let's just say that the spell is now permanent, no matter what I do."

Spike laughed. "So, you've been making the most of it, eh? The witch was one of 'em, I presume." Angel looked slightly embarrassed- which made Spike even more determined to hang around and take the piss- but didn't answer. Instead, he smiled in such a way that made Spike suspicious.

"So, what's the deal with the geeky kid?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

Angel sat down, imitating Spike's slouch on the bed. "Never took him for your type. Bit young for you, isn't he?"

Spike glared. "He's older than he looks. Besides, I've got two words for you- Buffy Summers," he retorted. "She was- what? -15 when you started mooning about after her?"

"I do not moon."

"Do too. Been doing it since you got here too, making puppy-eyes at Becker," Spike pointed out. "I'll admit the man does look good in body armour, though."

Angel began to nod at that but stopped himself, turning the conversation back to Spike. "So, the kid?" he needled. "People talk around here; I've heard all kinds of things regarding you, Lester and Connor."

"Have you now?"

"So, how much of it is true? Chatter says that you're screwing both of them. That true, Spike? One of them not enough for you- it takes both?"

Jumping to his feet, Spike got himself into Angel's personal space, hand clenched into a fist. "You leave Connor and James out of this or I swear I'll-"

"You'll what?" Angel folded his arms across his chest, studying Spike. "Don't think I've ever seen you get so protective before. You'll be telling me next that it's true love," he added with a laugh, the amusement fading as he watched Spike's reactions. "You do love them, don't you?"

Spike's eyes narrowed. "None of your damn business."

"Oh, so you can stick your nose in to my personal life, but I can't do the same?"

Spike frowned. "Just don't talk about them like that. Why the bloody hell did you have to show up here, anyway?"

"Not my fault, remember," Angel pointed out. "Besides, I didn't ask you to come in here, did I, Spikey?"

"Don't call me that! Pillock," Spike muttered.

There was a knock on the door and both vampires turned. "What?" they snapped simultaneously.

The door pushed open slowly and Connor cautiously poked his head around it, looking between the pair of them. Realising that he'd shouted at Connor, Spike waved him in, apologising, whilst Angel watched in amusement. He glared but the dark haired vampire just laughed.

"I could hear you arguing from out in the corridor," Connor told them. "Is everything okay?"

Spike nodded. "Just catching up."

"Well, the others are ready to head to the pub- Becker sent me to find you." Connor looked up at Angel. "You're welcome to join us, if you'd like."

Spike watched the brief flash of interest as Becker's name was mentioned, quickly quashed as Angel realised he was being observed. He frowned at Spike, but before he could speak, Connor took Spike's hand and pulled the vampire to the door.

"Come on- let's leave Angel to get ready." He turned to their guest. "We'll wait for you in the lobby."

Angel met them outside ten minutes later to walk to the pub. As he approached, Spike chuckled.

"Looks like someone's on the pull." Connor eyed Angel sceptically but Spike nodded. "Look at him, all spiffed up and billowy-coaty."

Lester sighed. Not again; they were worse than children.

Angel just smiled sweetly at Spike. "As opposed to looking like a Sid Vicious wannabe? You know it's been nearly 40 years; punk is dead."

Spike snorted scornfully. "Like I'm gonna take fashion advice from someone with that gelled-up poofy, nancy-boy hair!"

Angel looked pointedly at Connor, then at Lester, and back to Spike with a huge grin on his face.

"Welcome to the poofy, nancy-boy tribe, Spike."

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

An hour later, Angel and Becker sat close together at one of the small tables, deep in discussion about the latest James Bond film. Occasionally, one of them would go to the bar for more drinks but that was the only time they left each others' side. From the look of it, Spike's prediction had been spot on and it appeared that Becker wasn't objecting to being pulled.

At the next table, six people watched them, intrigued.

"For someone who had such a problem with vampires when Spike first arrived," Abby observed, "he seems to be getting awfully cosy."

"He does know that Angel is a vampire, doesn't he?" Danny wondered.

Spike leaned forward to get a better look at the proceedings. "Oh, this should be good."

Abby smacked him on the arm. "Maybe we should tell him. Connor?"

Connor frowned. "Why me?"

"He's your friend."

"So? He's your friend too. Besides, Danny's better at stuff like that than me."

"I'll do it," Spike offered and was immediately shot down. "'Never let me have any fun," he grumbled.

Connor relented. "Fine, I'll go."

When he saw Becker heading for the bar a few minutes later, he got up and followed.

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

Becker returned from the bar looking rather embarrassed and sat back down next to Angel. Glancing up, he saw that the others were all watching him, all averting their gazes quickly when he caught their eyes.

"What's going on?" Angel asked suspiciously.

Becker shook his head. "Nothing."

He really didn't want to get into that discussion, not here. He couldn't believe that the team had all been sitting there, discussing his love life, or potential love life! And Connor telling him that Angel was a vampire… Did they really think he was that stupid? Of course he knew that Angel was a vampire; how could he not know?

Once he really thought about it, he could understand where Connor's concern had come from although he still wished the whole conversation hadn't happened. When Spike had first arrived at the ARC with Connor, he hadn't been too comfortable with the idea of the vampire being there. He remembered his reaction when he had seen the bite marks on Connor's neck, how he had been ready to kill Spike for hurting him even though Connor had insisted that he'd agreed to it.

Now he'd had the chance to get used to Spike, and what he was, he felt differently. The fact that Angel was a vampire didn't really bother him.

"So why are they staring at us?" Angel persisted.

Becker looked up just in time to see Abby and Danny both shooting surreptitious glances their way. He glared.

"Ignore them."

He couldn't even fault Connor's assumption that he would take up Angel's advances, if he made any. If he was being honest with himself, he had been waiting for Angel to do just that all night. What bothered him was that it was his colleagues making those assumptions.

It took them a while, but eventually the others grew tired of watching them. He found Angel to be good company, the pair of them discovering a shared fondness for James Bond films and Robert Ludlum novels, and Angel's demon-hunting stories fascinated Becker almost as much as his dinosaur-hunting escapades did Angel. When it came time to leave, Becker walked back to the ARC with them all, Lester taking Connor and Spike home and leaving him alone with Angel.

Okay, this was awkward, he thought as they both fell silent.

"I guess I should be heading home," he said reluctantly, turning to head for his car. He was almost to the door before he heard Angel move. In the moment it had taken him to turn, Angel was right behind him.

"You could stay a while longer."

He smiled but shook his head, and a dismayed look passed across Angel's features.

"If you don't want to, that's fine. I just thought-"

"No! That's not what I meant," Becker told him hurriedly. He took a step closer to Angel. "It's just that if this is heading where I think it is, maybe we'd be better off at my place," he said with a pointed glance up at one of the numerous security cameras dotted about the ARC.

Angel nodded, the smile returning. "Let's go."

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

To be continued…


	8. Once Bitten

Once Bitten

Becker opened the door to his flat and went in, tossing his jacket onto the coat hooks. Realising that he couldn't hear Angel behind him he turned to see the dark haired vampire still standing outside.

"What's the matter?"

Angel looked slightly embarrassed as he said, "I can't come in unless you invite me."

"Oh, sorry. Come in, please."

The vampire came in and closed the door, advancing on Becker until he had the soldier backed against the wall. Leaning in, he stopped a bare whisper from Becker's lips, close enough that Becker could feel his breath as he asked,

"Now, where were we?"

Becker closed the last few millimetres between them, crushing his lips to Angel's, just as he had wanted all night. The vampire responded fiercely, one hand going up to curve around the back of his neck. Moments later, Becker shifted away far enough to smile at Angel.

"About there, I think." He glanced in the direction of his bedroom, wondering if he was being to presumptuous if he suggested that they move in that direction. He was glad when Angel appeared to have the same thought.

"Bedroom?" he asked.

With a nod of his head, Becker pulled Angel in for another kiss, pushing his coat back off his shoulders and onto the floor. Angel laughed softly, turning Becker around and sending him toward the bedroom, following behind closely, hands groping at Becker's arse and tugging his shirt free from his jeans as they walked. Becker paused for a moment to shed the shirt, pulling it over his head and dropping it onto a chair.

"Don't stop there," Angel teased. "You were just getting to the good stuff."

Bending to unlace his boots, he heard a low groan and glanced back to see Angel staring at him. The other man smiled as Becker wiggled his arse a little before standing and meeting that intense gaze. His eyes never left Angel's as he slowly unfastened his jeans, shimmying out of them.

"Unless you want me to start on my own, you'd better hurry up and get your arse over here," he said.

Becker dropped onto the bed, laying back as he watched Angel strip. Damn, that was a sight to behold, he thought, wrapping his palm around his aching cock. The vampire's body was lean, just enough muscle to appeal but not too much. He was pale, his creamy skin a sharp contrast to his dark hair and brown eyes.

"Come here."

Angel didn't hesitate, almost pouncing onto the bed. His body fit to Becker's perfectly, pressing against him in all the right places. Becker groaned as Angel's lips trailed kisses down his throat and he threw his head back, exposing the sensitive skin there. For a moment, he wondered if Angel would bite him but then the vampire moved lower, sliding down his body to take Becker's cock into his mouth. Becker tried to keep still, but Angel looked up the line of Becker's body, nodding minutely, giving his permission. Fisting his hands into Angel's hair, Becker thrust his hips up, pushing his cock deeper into that welcoming mouth. Oh fuck, that felt so good; Angel could take him all the way in, no hesitation.

When Angel lifted off him, Becker complained but the vampire merely smiled and crawled back up the bed.

"Want you," he said. "I want you to come with me inside you, not before."

Becker nodded, reaching for the lube in the drawer next to his bed and handing it over, watching every move as Angel slicked his fingers and began to ease two into Becker. Two became three and Becker pushed back onto them, fucking himself on Angel's fingers.

"Now, please."

Angel slid into him in one smooth stroke, wrapping one hand a round Becker's cock as he began to move.

"Fuck me, Angel, please. More."

Angel did, taking Becker hard and fast until the soldier was calling out his name as he came. Angel fucked him throughout, feeling Becker's body clenching around his cock as the climax raced through him, before finally finding his own release.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The following morning, Becker raced into the ARC, ten minutes late. He was never late, and he didn't like it. Behind him, the reason for his lateness hurried in under the cover of a couple of heavy blankets, through the door he was holding open.

"Captain Becker! Tell me, have you forgotten how to tell the time?" Lester's voice rang out, alerting everyone who hadn't already noticed that he was late.

He sighed. "No Sir. Traffic."

Lester cast a knowing look over at Angel. "Well, next time you might want to try setting off earlier."

As he went back to his office, Angel murmured, "Not a morning person, is he?"

Becker just glared. "I've been here five minutes and already I'm late for work and I just lied to my boss about why I was late," he grumbled. "The sarcastic comments aren't helping."

Angel smiled. "Not my fault," he said in a low voice. "I'm not the one who decided to share a shower and then couldn't keep his hands off me. Or the one who begged me to fuck him in said shower when he should have been getting ready for work."

"You should have told James that- he'd probably have let you off," another voice chipped in.

Becker felt his face heat up as he saw Spike strolling toward them, the grin on his face saying he'd heard every word. Damn vampire hearing. He excused himself and made a dash for the relative safety of the armoury.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Three days later, Spike glanced up as Becker knocked on Connor's office door. When he saw Spike and Lester there with Connor, he paused.

"Never mind," he muttered. "I'll come back later."

"Wait." Connor stopped him. "Spike, James, give us a few minutes, would you?"

Spike gave a martyred sigh and wandered out. As he passed Connor and Lester, a wicked smile crossed his face.

"Think I'll go see what Angel's up to."

"Do not go to antagonize him!" Lester said.

Spike looked offended. "Me? I'm just going to check on an old friend..."

The door clicked shut behind him and Connor watched Spike saunter away. Lester merely took another sip of tea from his mug, showing no signs of leaving.

"So, what did you come to talk to me about?" he asked Becker.

"Well, you're really the only people I can ask about this-" Becker suddenly stopped and headed for the door again. "Actually, this was a bad idea. Let's just forget about it, okay?"

"Let me guess," Connor said, as Lester went to lock the door before sitting back down. Becker reluctantly perched on the edge of the desk. "You've either been wondering what it's like having two blokes at once and want to borrow one of us for a threeway or you want to ask about vampire sex."

Becker felt his face heating up at the last part and Connor grinned at him, continuing,

"Well, when two men really like each other-"

Oh this was hell. Why had he ever come in here? "Connor, I don't think I need a talk about the birds and the bees."

Connor's grin didn't fade but he stopped as Lester cast him a disapproving look. "Sorry. I'll be serious, I promise. Now, what's wrong?"

His gaze firmly fixed on the carpet near his right boot, Becker said quickly, "Does it always hurt if they bite you?"

This time Lester smiled. "You want him to bite you? I was hesitant to begin with but then I saw how much Connor enjoyed it," he said, surprising Becker with his candour. "The feeling is anything but painful, I can assure you."

"It's amazing," Connor added. "Just ask him, you won't regret it."

Becker nodded. Maybe he would. Tonight, he decided. It must be odd for them, he thought. At least as odd as it was for him to be asking his boss and his colleague for advice about this kind of thing, for them to be discussing their private life with him. He remembered how uncomfortable he had been with Spike to begin with, how outraged he had been when he saw the bite wounds on Connor's neck that first time. He wondered how it worked with the three of them, more to the point, how Lester had ended up with them. He just couldn't help thinking about it if he saw the three of them together.

"I knew it!" Connor said, the grin back on his face as he noticed Becker's hesitation. "You _are_ thinking about what it would be like to have a threeway!"

Oh shit. Busted. "I was not!"

Connor glanced at Lester. "He was."

Lester nodded, hiding his smile behind his mug of tea.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Spike found Angel in Sarah's office, listening as the woman told him all about some of their more unusual anomalies. When he saw Spike enter the office, without knocking, naturally, Angel sighed.

"Don't you have other people to annoy?"

Spike shook his head. "Nope. I'm all yours."

"Oh yay, lucky me," Angel muttered, making Sarah laugh.

Just then the alarms went off and Sarah hurried past them, heading for the detector room. The two vampires followed, watching as the soldiers kitted up and Connor collected his things. They couldn't go along this time; the anomaly was, according to the ADD, in the middle of a village about twenty miles away. There would be no shelter from the mid-day sun for the two vampires. Angel saw Lester up on his balcony, turning around and going back to his office as the teams left.

"Come on," Spike told him, leading the way to the staff room.

The blonde vampire poured two mugs of blood from the bottle he had in the fridge, warming the mugs in the microwave for a few seconds. Handing one to Angel, he sat down with the other.

"This is the worst bit," he said. "The waiting around for them to get back and hoping they come back in one piece."

They sat in silence for a while before Angel spoke.

"I can see why you like it here. It's been a long time since I could relax, let my guard down; back home there was always some demon or vampire or vampire hunter who wanted me dead. Here, we're the only ones," he said. "And they don't treat us like vampires."

Spike looked mildly affronted. "Hey, I'm here. I could still kick your arse. You know, if I wanted to." He shrugged his shoulders. "Not like I'm planning to, but still."

Angel smiled. No matter how much Spike pissed him off, or how much he really wanted to throw the bleached-blonde pain-in-the-arse out of the nearest window on daily basis, he was glad for the company. Spike was the only one in this world who knew about home, the only one he could talk to about the things that had happened back in LA, in Sunnydale.

"Do you ever think about going home?" he asked. "I mean, if you could get back."

Spike shook his head. "No, not any more. I went back once, did they tell you that?"

"How? I thought we were stuck in this world."

"The anomaly opened up on the bridge again, the one I came here through. Buffy, Willow and Giles came through in hot pursuit of a demon." He smiled at the memory. "This lot couldn't decide whether to be amazed or horrified when Buffy started wailing on the demon."

Angel laughed. "I had that same moment when I first saw her, that 'she's so tiny; she'll get herself killed' moment of terror."

"That was about it," Spike agreed. "So, when they went back, I went with them."

"So why not stay there? Its home, where you- we- belong."

Spike looked a little embarrassed as he answered. "It's not. This is home now. By that time, I had the boys," he said. "They're here so this is where I am."

"Aww, Spikey's getting sentimental in his old age," Angel teased.

"I'm younger than you, grandpa," Spike retorted.

"I notice you didn't argue the 'sentimental' part."

Spike smiled. "Laugh at me all you want, but its different here. We're just like them, not the outsiders, the monsters, we're just one of the team," he said. "And besides, you have no right to take the piss, matey. You think I haven't seen you making goo-goo eyes at Becker? You're not fooling anyone; you like it here, with the team and with Becker."

Even as he opened his mouth to argue, Angel knew that Spike was right. Or at least partly right. He really hoped that he wasn't making goo-goo eyes at Becker. He still had some small shreds of dignity left.

"Yeah, okay," he admitted. "I guess there are worse places I could have ended up."

Spike laughed. "And the rest."

Angel glared. "Shut up."

"No, you shut up. So, how are things with Pretty Boy? I'll bet he's a devil in the sack. He always looks so innocent and clean cut but then you know what they say, it's always the quiet ones…"

"I'm not talking about this."

"Doesn't really matter," Spike pointed out. "Becker talks to Connor and, well, Connor will tell me anything with a bit of persuasion. And those soldiers? Worse than a bunch of gossiping women when they get going."

Angel sighed. "Things are fine, only…"

"Only what?"

"He's been a bit weird lately, just the last few days. It's like he's suddenly uneasy around me, like there's something wrong but he isn't saying anything to me."

"So, ask him. Do you really want to mess things up with him because neither of you are willing to talk about whatever it is?"

Angel stared at Spike in almost disbelief. "Have you been watching _Passions_ again?" he asked in amusement. "You're starting to sound like a soap-opera."

"You know what? You can sort out your own problems; I'm out of here," Spike grumbled, getting up and stomping out.

Angel followed. "Wait. I'm sorry. It's just that the Spike I remember cared more about the latest thrill than about anyone else. It's strange to see you here, settled." When Spike finally stopped, Angel continued. "This place has changed you, for the better, I might add."

"Careful, Angel, people might actually start to think you like me."

"Bite me."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

That night, Angel followed Becker into his flat. He had spent one night at the ARC in the past week, the rest at Becker's flat. Thinking back on Spike's words earlier that day- though he couldn't believe he was actually taking advice from Spike- he made up his mind to talk to Becker. As it turned out, he didn't need to. Becker beat him to it. As he poured himself a glass of blood from the bottle he kept in the refrigerator and warmed it, taking a long drink, Becker spoke.

"You don't have to drink from that bottle every day," he said quietly, not meeting Angel's eyes. "You could take it from me. If you wanted, that is," he added hurriedly.

Angel smiled, a lot of things suddenly dropping into place: Becker's odd mood, the super-secret little chat that Spike said he'd been evicted from. Setting his glass down he went to Becker, backed the man against the refrigerator, made him look up and meet Angel's gaze.

"You want me to bite you, is that it?" he asked. "Why didn't you just say something?"

"It's not exactly something I can just announce over breakfast, is it?" Becker pointed out.

Angel smiled. "You could, but I can think of better times to ask." He hesitated for a moment. "You realise that I've got to change to bite, don't you? It's not like drinking from a glass. If you don't want to see me like that…"

"It's fine. I've seen your game-face before. It's not going to make me run for the hills."

Angel looked relieved and leaned in closer to Becker. When he licked along the side of Becker's neck before moving up for a kiss, the soldier shivered.

"Bed," he said, ushering Becker along toward the bedroom. When they got there he had them both undressed in record time, backing Becker onto the bed.

Becker lay back and watched as the vampire prowled toward him, crawling up the bed, over him. He was starting to have the tiniest of doubts; Angel was a predator, a hunter, and he'd just offered himself up as prey. Then again, he knew that Connor, and especially Lester, wouldn't let him get into something that would hurt him. What had Connor said in the car on the way back from the anomaly? Better than sex. He wasn't entirely convinced by that but he was willing to find out.

"Relax, Hils. If you've changed your mind, I'll back off," Angel told him as he kissed the soft skin at the base of Becker's throat.

Becker felt a wave of disappointment at that thought. "I want it."

Angel shifted slightly, settling in between Becker's thighs, rolling his hips against Becker's. Becker felt the barest pinprick on his neck, barely enough for him to notice especially when Angel kept rubbing against him like that. So, that was what it felt like to get bitten?

"Oh my God…"

No, _this_ was what it felt like, he mentally corrected moments before his thoughts turned to cotton wool at the rush of sensation. He could feel each pull as Angel drank from him, the blood running through his veins, Angel's lips on his neck, so close to a kiss. Between that and vampire's body pressed against his, his hands on Becker's body, it was almost better than sex. _So what would it be like combining the two?_ he wondered idly.

"Fuck me."

The words were out before he realised it. Angel paused, stopping for long enough to make sure Becker was ready and push inside. As he slid into Becker's welcoming body he casually licked away a drop of blood from the wound on Becker's neck.

"More. Both."

Angel fucked him slowly as he drank a little more, overloading Becker's senses. He couldn't hold back any longer, coming hard. Angel let go of Becker's neck and closed the wound, fucking him harder as he found his own release.

Dropping down onto the bed, Angel moved Becker's pliant, sated body into his arms.

"Are you okay?"

Becker smiled, nodding. "We have got to do that again."

"Definitely," Angel agreed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The following day, after a particularly messy chase involving a pissed off stegosaurus, heavy rain, and a muddy field, Becker trudged wearily after his men as they all headed for the communal showers. They had stopped long enough to hand their weapons back in at the armoury but by then the mud had begun to set on their clothing, making it rather uncomfortable.

At least he hadn't fared as bad a Connor, he thought with a smile. The other man had landed face-first in the mire whilst attempting to get out of the creature's way, much to everyone's amusement. So, leaving Danny to report back to Lester- somehow Danny had managed to avoid so much as a muddy boot- Becker stripped and gratefully stepped under the shower spray.

And then realised that the other conversations had stopped. He looked around slowly to see his men all staring at him.

"What?" Okay, this was creepy. "Never seen a bloke showering before?" he asked sarcastically.

Connor tapped him on the shoulder and he groaned when the other man pointed discreetly to his neck. Bugger! Bite marks. His jacket had been hiding them all day, but not any more. He heard a whisper and then a snigger from the soldiers. Why did they have to make such a big deal of this? he wondered. Then he remembered how he had done exactly the same thing to Connor not too long ago. There were a couple of bites visible on Connor too, but the fascination with Connor and Spike and whatever they might be getting up to had worn off now; apparently their curiosity about him and Angel had not.

Seconds later, Mark Andrews, his second in command, approached. It looked as though he had been nominated to ask, Becker thought.

"You really let him do that?" Mark asked, waving a hand in the direction of Becker's neck.

Becker nodded.

"Why would you?"

Glancing at Connor and seeing the wicked smile on the other man's face, Becker knew exactly what he was thinking. It was probably the only way to get rid of them.

"You would not believe how good it feels," Becker replied. "If they want to, a vampire could make you come just from their bite. And when he fucked me at the same time..."

The soldiers all just stared at him for a moment before looking to Connor for confirmation or denial. Connor just smiled.

"He's right- it's feels fantastic."

They could see Mark mulling it over as he went back to the others, just as a voice from the doorway announced,

"Thanks, love. Nice to know we're appreciated."

The rest of the men finished up and headed for their lockers, gossiping in low voices with the occasional glance back at Becker and Connor, as Spike and Angel wandered into the shower room.

"Now this is a pretty sight," Angel observed. "Wet, naked solider."

Connor wandered out of the shower and took the towel he'd left out, wrapping it around his waist before giving the vampire a kiss.

"No need to cover up on my account," Spike teased. "Or his," he said, nodding to Angel. "I reckon he's too busy to notice anyway."

They both looked back to where Angel stood, eyes only for Becker as the soldier turned off the water. Immediately, Angel was on him, backing him against the tiled wall, pinning him there as he pressed their lips together in a heated kiss. After a moment of hesitation, his gaze flicking to their audience, Becker returned the kiss, one leg hooking around Angel's to draw him in closer still.

"That's hot," Connor said, getting increasingly turned on as he watched them, pressing himself against Spike and wishing there weren't layers of towel and denim in between them.

Spike grinned. "Think they'd let us watch?"

"Becker would probably let us join in," Connor replied, remembering the conversation in his office days before.

"Would he now?" Spike turned as he heard voices approaching, warning the others that they were about to get company.

By the time the door opened and two more of Becker's men wandered in, Becker and Connor were dressed and just leaving, the two vampires already gone. The men had obviously been talking to the other soldiers as Becker saw them trying to get a look at his neck as they passed him by. He sighed.

"They'll get bored soon," Connor told him.

"I hope so."

Connor smiled. "So, are you glad you asked him?" When Becker nodded, Connor laughed. "Told you so."

Becker couldn't keep the smile from forming. "Yes, okay, you did." He was silent for a moment, and then, "So, apart from the biting, is there anything else I should know?"

Slinging an arm around Becker's shoulders, Connor steered him in the direction of the staff room.

"Come on, let's get a cup of tea and I'll tell you all about it."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The end (for now)


	9. Houseguests pt1

Notes: This has been divided into three seperate chapters due to length.

Lester's children, Jessica and David, are oc's, as is Amelia, his ex-wife.

* * *

Houseguests

Lester was pacing. He had been going back and forth across his office for the past five minutes and it still wasn't actually helping. He'd already called Spike and Connor to come up a few minutes earlier and now he waited, not really sure what he was going to do when they got here. If he'd had a bit more time, maybe…

The door opened and Connor came hurrying in, followed at a more leisurely saunter by Spike. The vampire avoided the small stripe of sunlight that had got in through the crack in the blinds and went to stand in front of Lester, blocking his path. He prevented Lester from going around him with a hand on his arm.

"What's wrong?"

Lester looked into concerned eyes, noticing Connor watching him warily too.

"I've just had a call from my sister in law," he began. "There's been an accident. Amelia's car was struck at a junction; the other driver ran a red light and hit the driver's side of her car."

"Is she okay?" Connor asked, knowing that despite their divorce, Lester was still on friendly terms with his ex wife. He had another horrible thought. "Were the kids in the car?"

"David was at his football practice but Amelia was taking Jessica to her friend's house. She's got a broken wrist and a few scrapes. She was lucky."

"And Amelia?"

"Amelia has whiplash from the impact, and a broken leg as well as a few other minor cuts and bruises but the hospital says she can go home tomorrow." He paused for a moment, looking at them both. "She's asked me to take the kids until she can get around a little easier. With her leg, she can't look after them at home and-"

Connor smiled. "James, it's fine. Of course they should come and stay with you."

"Yeah," Spike chipped in. "We'll help; I'm great with kids. Just ask Buffy. I looked after Dawnie while she was dead- Buffy, not Dawn- and we had some great times, me and the little bit."

Lester remained silent, not meeting their eyes.

"They don't know about us, do they?" Connor asked. "Do you want us to move out while they're here? I'm sure Abby would let us have her spare room again if I asked."

"No." Lester's response was immediate. That was the one thing he knew he didn't want. "I'm not going to turn you out; I don't want you to leave. Besides, they already know that you live there, Connor. It just means we'll have to remember that they're in the flat."

"So, no shagging on the sofa while we're watching TV," Spike said, then grinned. "What? I'm helping."

"It means that James will be staying in his room, and we'll be staying in mine, right?" Connor asked. "Nothing over PG rating in front of the kids, or anywhere they might walk in or overhear. And Spike will wear clothing when he sleeps so we don't have to worry about him wandering about in the buff."

Grateful, Lester nodded. He should have known that Connor and Spike would support him in this, help him out however much they could.

"So what are you going to tell them?" Spike asked. "Just so we don't get our stories crossed."

Now that was the big question, wasn't it? How exactly did he explain a vampire living in his flat, in Connor's bed?

"I'll just tell them that you're friends of mine, at least to begin with," he said decisively. Glancing at his watch, he swore.

"I have to go and collect them. I don't suppose you two could go back to the flat and have a bit of a tidy up, could you?"

Spike stood, ushering him out of the door. "Go. We'll go hide the porn."

"There isn't any porn, James," Connor told him, glaring at Spike. "We can sort it out. You go and get the kids."

~.~

By the time Lester arrived back at the flat, the spare room had been changed back into the bedroom it was meant to be, the clutter removed and the bed made up. Connor had taken all of his books and his laptop from Lester's room into his old bedroom, piled them in the corner and closed the door to hide the mess. They would have to put David in the study, Connor decided. There was a sofa bed in there that they pull out, and plenty of room for an eight year old.

"Better move anything that he shouldn't be reading," Connor said, collecting up any paperwork that mentioned the ARC or the creatures.

A squeak at his feet made him look down and he saw Sid and Nancy watching him curiously. Nancy looked up at the freshly made bed and he could see it in her eyes- it was part 'where did the sofa go?' and part 'ooooh, something to jump on'.

"Don't you dare," he told her as she crouched to get a better leap up onto the bed. "Sorry, guys, but you're moving into my room for a while. I'll take you over to Abby's soon and then you can go and play with Rex for a couple of days. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

They heard the sound of voices out in the hall, signalling Lester's return.

"Too late. Spike, can you grab Nancy and I'll bring Sid and their bed."

They had just managed to get the two Diictodons into Connor's room when the door opened and Lester came in. Spike went to get the bags from him, taking them to the two rooms, while Connor tried to keep out of the way.

"Jessica, David, you remember Connor, don't you?"

David nodded, smiling. Since finding out that Connor knew lots about dinosaurs, as well as video games, they'd quickly become friends. Jessica remained a little more aloof, merely muttering 'hi' to him. She was cradling her wrist to her, a bright purple cast covering it, and there were a few scrapes visible on her cheek from the accident.

"And this is Spike," Lester introduced, as the vampire returned.

Now Jessica looked interested. Spike actually got a smile.

~.~

Lester had just returned to the kitchen after showing the kids to their rooms when there was a scream. The three of them all made a dash for Jessica's room, tripping over David on the way as he came out to see what all of the excitement was about.

"It went under the bed!" she told them as soon as they reached the door. She was standing on her bed, looking around nervously.

Connor glanced at Spike. "If it's a spider, I'm not getting it."

With a sigh, Spike crouched down and peered under the bed as Lester tried to calm his daughter down. He grinned, reaching under the bed.

"Well, it's not a spider but it is a pest," he said to Connor, dragging a squirming, protesting Nancy out and picking her up. He took a pink t-shirt with the word Princess across the front of it in sparkly letters away from Nancy and handed it to Jessica. "Yours, I presume. Unless your dad has something he'd like to tell us."

That made Jessica smile before she looked back at the diictodon, still wriggling against Spike's grip on her.

"She's called Nancy. She's harmless," Lester told her, offering her a hand to help her down off the bed. After a minute, she took it. "There are two of them and they were _supposed_ to be locked in Connor's room," he added with a pointed look at Connor and Spike.

Jessica was still eyeing Nancy curiously. She half reached out a hand to pet her but pulled it back at last minute, looking to her dad.

"She doesn't bite?"

To prove it, Lester petted the top of Nancy's head, the little creature making a happy squeaking sound as he did so. Eventually, Jessica reached out again.

"It's okay," Connor told her. "My friend Abby is going to look after them while you're here. I was going to take them over to her this evening."

Gently stroking Nancy's head in the same way she would a dog, Jessica frowned.

"She just scared me, that's all. You don't have to send them away."

Connor heard Sid's cries from his room, missing Nancy, and went to get him. The door must have swung shut behind Nancy, trapping Sid, and he wasn't happy about it.

"Can we keep them here?" David asked, barging into the room and giving away the fact he'd been listening in. "Please, dad? They're cool."

Looking between his children, Lester sighed. "Fine. Though you many regret that decision the first time you find one of your shoes half-eaten."

David shared none of his sister's hesitation, going to pet Sid straight away.

"Can they fetch?" he asked Connor. "Can I play with them?"

After a nod from Lester, Connor and Spike put the two creatures down on the floor again. Sid scampered after David as he hurried into the living room but Nancy just sat down, looking up at Jessica.

"It's okay. She can stay in here if she wants."

Lester lifted her bag up onto the bed so that Nancy couldn't steal anything else while she unpacked, hesitating.

"Does your wrist hurt?" he asked. "I could get you one of your pain tablets. Or help you unpack, if you wanted me to." When Jessica rolled her eyes at him he held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, it's just that I was worried about you."

Connor and Spike, waiting outside, heard the sadness in Lester's voice and the lack of response from Jessica, and it took all of Connor's willpower not to hug him when he came out, closing the door behind him.

"She's unpacking," Lester told them, as though he didn't know they'd been listening.

~.~

That evening, Connor and Spike met with the rest of the team in the local pub, leaving Lester to have some time with his children. It seemed strange without Lester there; since they'd become involved, Lester always came out with them for a drink.

It just didn't seem the same, though.

"Let's go back," Spike said after a couple of hours. "The munchkins will be asleep by now, so we won't be disturbing anything."

Connor nodded and they took the short walk back to Lester's flat, going in quietly. They were almost to Connor's room when a voice asked,

"And what time do you call this?"

Connor turned back to the living room, seeing Lester sitting on the sofa, the TV on with the sound turned down low.

"It's not that late," he protested.

Lester smiled. "That's exactly what I mean. I thought you were going out on the town with the rest of the team."

Spike dropped into Lester's lap, his knees either side of Lester's legs on the sofa. "We were, but we missed you. Besides, I'm hungry, and I'm in the mood for a James-flavoured snack," Spike told him, leaning in to nibble gently on the side of Lester's neck.

For a moment, Lester let his head fall to the side to give Spike more room, but then he suddenly sat up straight again.

"I can't: what about the children?"

Spike took Lester's hand and climbed off the sofa, pulling Lester up with him. He led him into Connor's room, Connor following them in and closing the door behind them.

"Their rooms aren't next to mine," Connor reminded him. "It'll be fine. Come on, James, please?"

Between Connor's pleading look and Spike slowly removing his shirt as his hand roamed, Lester took one last look at the door and sighed. How the bloody hell was he supposed to resist the pair of them when they teamed up?

Connor grinned and pounced on him, kissing him hard. It had been strange not being able to touch their lover all day, not being able to show him any affection. Even at work they didn't have to be so secretive, not since Helen had blurted out the truth about their relationship a few months ago.

"I'll set the alarm so that we're up early enough for you to get back to your own room," Connor promised. "They'll never know where you spent the night."

Lester smiled gratefully. "Thank you. I know this isn't easy for you two. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate your efforts."

Spike smirked and finished unfastening Lester's belt. "Don't start getting soppy on us," he joked, before his tone turned serious. "We know how important it is that everything goes okay, and so we'll do what we can to help. For now, though, we've got you to ourselves so I think we need less talk and more shagging."

Lester kicked his shoes off and watched as Connor and Spike stripped, climbing onto the bed with him. He was still wary about this, what with the children in the flat, but he had missed the contact as much as the other two. Spike pushed him back onto the bed, crawling over him and pressing his slightly cool body along Lester's. Leaning down, he stole a kiss.

He moved lower, tasting his way down Lester's body until he could lick a stripe along the underside of Lester's cock.

At Lester's nod, he took Lester into his mouth, sucking, licking, and making the other man utter a low groan of satisfaction.

"Quiet now," Connor teased, putting a hand over Lester's mouth. "If you can't be quiet, we'll have to gag you."

Spike lifted his head and smiled. "I think he likes that idea."

Connor laughed softly. From Lester's reactions it certainly appeared that way, something Connor hadn't expected. He had never assumed Lester would like that.

"We can save that idea for later, when we've got the time to play," he said. For now, they were going to have to be quick and quiet.

Spike continued to tease, never letting Lester reach his climax, backing off each time he sensed that the other man was close.

"Can I?"

Lester didn't even need to ask what he wanted permission for, nor did he have to consider the answer.

"Yes- wait, Spike. No visible marks."

Spike grinned at him. "None's going to see 'em, trust me," he said, his features changing as he sank his teeth into Lester's skin, in the crease of his leg, just over his femoral artery.

"Fuck…"

Lester's eyes rolled back as he came, Spike drinking his fill and then licking over the wound to heal it again.

Letting Lester catch his breath, Connor pulled Spike in for a kiss, smiling when his fingers touched something wet in Spike's hair. Trailing a finger through it, he turned to Lester.

"You got him all dirty."

Lester smirked. "So I did." He turned on his side, a hand under his head. "I like it."

Connor crawled over him, laying his body alongside Lester and kissing him. Spike grumbled for a moment about feeling left out before curling around Connor, making the younger man grin and wriggle in Lester's arms. Lester ran his hands down Connor's back, over his arse, and realised what Spike was doing to make Connor react like that. Reaching over for the bottle of lube he'd seen Connor hide in the bedside cabinet, he passed it to Spike.

"Fuck him, Spike. Let me watch." He heard a cap being snapped shut and the bottle being dropped on the floor, before Connor's breath hitched.

"Now remember, Connor," Lester teased, his hand covering Spike's as two of the vampire's fingers pressed into Connor. "Be quiet."

Connor let out a low whimper, pushing back against Spike. "Please."

Spike took another few moments to get him ready before sliding his cock into Connor, seeing Connor bite his lip to stop himself making any sound. Lester helpfully hooked his hands under Connor's thighs, spreading him wider for Spike and holding him in his arms as Spike fucked him.

He could feel Connor's hard cock pressed against his stomach, feel Connor trying to rub off against him, and smiled.

"No, Connor," he whispered. "Not yet."

Connor whined. "But James…"

Spike's teeth nipped at Connor's shoulder, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to stop Connor's protests. Taking Connor hard, he then made sure that talking was the last thing on the younger man's mind.

~.~

The following morning, Lester awoke as someone placed a cup of tea on the bedside table. He opened his eyes to see David trying not to spill the tea as he put the mug down. When he noticed that his dad was awake, David smiled.

"Spike said breakfast is ready," he reported before turning and bolting for the door, calling back over his shoulder, "He's making pancakes."

"For breakfast?" But David was gone, leaving Lester to get out of bed and ready for work.

When he emerged ten minutes later, he found Spike loading pancakes onto the kids' plates and pouring them more orange juice. He cringed as Connor poured a diabetic-coma-inducing amount of treacle over a stack of pancakes, an act copied by David.

"See? I told you that'd taste good."

David grinned, forking breakfast into his mouth as fast as he could.

"Hey, niblet, you might want to chew some of that," Spike pointed out. When he saw Lester he started toward him to greet him but stopped himself in time. Instead he smiled, the grin telling Lester all of the things he would have done, had the kids not been here. "Mornin' James. Sleep well?"

He knew the answer to that perfectly well, Lester thought, as he'd spent the majority of it pressed between Spike and Connor. As promised, Connor had woken him at just after four this morning, giving him time to get back to his room before either of the children woke up. Unfortunately, he had then fallen asleep again, only to be woken by his alarm clock at five thirty.

"You didn't have to make breakfast, Spike. I could have done it."

Spike handed a plate of pancakes to Jessica. "There you go, love."

Jessica tried to pick up the treacle but the cast on her arm meant that she couldn't get hold of it properly. She tried again, this time knocking a mug over on the table beside her.

"I hate this stupid thing."

Lester reached over to pick up the treacle, taking off the lid. "Let me help you."

"I don't want any help!"

Lester watched in dismay as she scraped her chair back from the table and went back to her room. He got up to follow her but Spike stopped him.

"You stay here with David and finish your breakfast," he said, picking up the plate, treacle and a fork. "I'll be back in a minute."

Spike knocked on Jessica's door before going in. The girl was sitting on her bed, her knees up to her chest with her arms around them.

"Here," he said, putting the plate down beside her and sitting down on the end of the bed. "Before it gets cold." There was a faint scuffling from under the bed and Nancy emerged, looking up at the food, her eyes sparkling. "Well, before Nancy gets it, anyway."

Jessica smiled, picking up her pancakes and letting him put some treacle on them.

"You fancy talking about it?" She shook her head, eating quietly. "Okay then."

As he got up to leave, she frowned. "That's it?"

"What were you expecting?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know." There was a moment of silence and then, "I don't like him treating me like a kid, wanting to do everything for me."

Spike sat down again. "He's just trying to help, pet. When he heard about the accident, your dad was really worried about you. I'll tell you what- I'll ask him to back off a bit, if you give him a break, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Now, how about coming back to sit with us?"

Jessica nodded, eating the last of her breakfast and following him out, mumbling "Sorry, dad," as she sat down.

Ten minutes later, the dishes were washed and put away and Lester was pulling his jacket on. He had already agreed with Jessica that she could take today off school given that she was still feeling a bit sore from the accident, but David wanted to go.

"Are you sure you're alright to go to school?" he asked David as the boy stood in front of him, clutching his lunch bag. "You had a bit of a shock yesterday."

He nodded, looking quite worried at the prospect of not going.

"Would you mind if Connor took you, while I take Jessica to Auntie Emma's house?"

"Cool!" There was no hesitation on David's part, eager to have Connor to talk to for the whole journey there.

Jessica, on the other hand, didn't look quite as excited. "Can't I just go with you today, dad? I won't get in your way, I promise. Please?"

"You'd be bored there," he told her, trying to put her off. It wasn't as though he could tell her the real reason she wasn't allowed in the ARC. "I've got work to do so I won't be able to keep you company."

"I can take my book, and I've got an essay due that I can write. I don't want to go to Auntie Emma's."

Spike could see Lester trying desperately to come up with an excuse but, unfortunately, Jessica could see that too. The crestfallen look on her face made him take Lester to one side.

"She can stay with me if the team have to go out, or in your office. We can make sure no one tells her anything she shouldn't know," he said. "She just wants so see where her dad works."

It was that which did it, Lester sighing loudly. "This is a bad idea," he told Spike before turning back to his daughter. "Fine, but you have to promise me that you go wandering off. There are some places where you aren't allowed to go."

She nodded, hurrying back to her room and returning with a paperback novel, an A4 writing pad, pens and a text book.

~.~

Connor arrived at the ARC an hour later, just as Lester was starting to fret. It was a twenty minute journey to the school, give or take a few minutes for traffic, and then back to work. It shouldn't take him an hour unless something had happened.

"Sorry," Connor told him when he finally came hurrying through the door. "David wanted to show me his geography project, and then the teacher started talking to me."

Lester frowned. David hadn't shown him that project; he'd talked about it, but never offered to show it off.

"It's just because I was there; it doesn't mean anything," Connor continued, seeing Lester's expression. He moved to Lester, reaching out a hand before remembering that Jessica was in the room and stopped himself.

Lester looked up as Becker came into his office, pausing when he saw Jessica.

"Becker, come in. Jessica, could you give us a minute?"

Spike slung an arm around the girl's shoulders and steered her out of the room.

"Come on, pet. Let's go get a cuppa," he said, before smirking in Becker's direction. "And while Becker is in here, we can nick some of his biscuits. I know where he stashes them."

Becker rolled his eyes at Spike. "Take Angel with you. He's been hanging around my office looking bored for the past half hour."

Spike led Jessica out, Connor following and veering off toward Abby's office, heading for the break room.

"Who's Angel?"

"Becker's boyfriend," Spike told her, pointing to the vampire in question when they reached Becker's office. "Hey, nancy-boy, Becker sent us to get you out from under his feet."

Angel glared at him but he stood up anyway, holding out his hand to Jessica.

"Since he can't remember his manners, I'll introduce myself," he said with a pointed look toward Spike. "Hi, I'm Angel."

"Jessica Lester."

Angel eyed her curiously for a moment. "I heard you were staying with Lester, sorry, I mean your dad, for a while. How's your arm?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, I suppose." She looked up to Spike when she realised what she'd said but he just grinned.

"I won't tell him if you don't. Might as well get a few days off school if you can."

They walked to the break room, Angel tagging along behind. When they walked in, the conversation stopped as everyone turned to look their way before it started up again. This time, Spike noticed, the language had been toned down with no mention of dinosaurs or anomalies.

"What does dad do?" Jessica asked. "He'll never tell me. And why are there lots of soldiers? Does he do something dangerous?" Her eyes lit up. "Is he a spy like James Bond and this is all some super secret spy base."

Spike laughed. "He's not a spy. He, and the rest of us, protects the public from things that would hurt them. He-"

Jessica jumped, sloshing her tea over the side of the mug, as the anomaly detector started wailing. Around the room, the soldiers abandoned their mugs and scraped back their chairs, hurrying out.

"What's going on? Was that a fire alarm?"

"No, it just means that them lot have to go to work. Anyway, didn't you say you had an essay to write?"

She nodded, not looking particularly enthusiastic at the thought. "It's history. It's just so boring."

Angel and Spike shared a look. "That's because, in school, they don't teach you the exciting bits," Spike told her. "What are you studying? Maybe we can help; we're good with history."

~.~

Three hours later the field team returned, muddy and annoyed after having to chase what Becker referred to as 'stupid overgrown chickens' around a farmers field while trying in vain to make them go back through the anomaly. Connor had poked his head into the office on his way past, heading for the showers, just to let them know he was back. Normally, Spike would have waited until the others had finished and sneaked in to join Connor, but today he stayed where he was. Angel, on the other hand, wasn't trying to keep anything a secret. Jessica already knew he was with Becker and so he excused himself with a smile.

"Hils might need some help," he said. "You know, washing those hard to reach places."

Spike glared at him, partly from frustration that he couldn't do the same. Nodding in Jessica's direction, he zipped a finger across his lips. Angel just grinned and left.

"Who's Hils?"

"That would be Becker. His name is Hilary, but we only call him that when we really want to pis- annoy him."

Jessica was silent for a minute, a frown on her face. A second later, she blushed. "Oh! So when Angel said help, he meant he and Becker were going to-"

"No, he didn't_." Bugger bugger bugger_! Lester was going to be pissed that they were corrupting his little girl.

"Its okay- I do know about this stuff. My friend Louise's big brother, Darren, has got a boyfriend and the other day at her house, me and Louise walked in on them kissing. And Darren had his hands on Richard's bum!" she added with a giggle. "It was so embarrassing!"

Spike heaved a sigh of relief. Kissing, minor groping; that wasn't too bad. If that was the worst she thought Becker and Angel were doing right now then he'd take it.

"Is Connor your boyfriend?" she asked, the essay abandoned now that something more interesting had happened. "You sleep in his bedroom."

How had the conversation ended up here? He thought. He really wanted to say yes, that not only was Connor his boyfriend but Lester was too. It would take away all of the hiding and secrecy, let them behave normally around the flat, but it wasn't his place to tell her. If Lester wanted to, then that was his decision.

"Yes, Connor is my boyfriend," he told her, watching the sappy smile appear on her face and seeing the questions forming in her mind. "Right, now where were we with this essay?"

Jessica reluctantly picked up her pen again, looking disappointed.

By the time Lester came down to check on them, the essay was almost finished and Spike was entertaining her with stories of the things that they _don't_ put into the history books. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, before apologising when she uttered a long-suffering, "Da-ad."

"Sorry, sweetheart. I know, you're getting too old for things like that. So, have you and Spike been keeping out of trouble?"

This time, both of them protested, much to Lester's amusement.

"I meant to come down earlier to have lunch with you but something came up," he continued.

Jessica smiled. "That's okay. We decided to wait for you." The pen was dropped onto the note pad again and she was on her feet. "Spike and Angel have been helping me with my history essay. Well, Angel was until he went to make out with Becker."

Lester's mouth dropped open. "What?"

"Come on, dad. Let's get some dinner," Jessica said, oblivious to his reaction. "I'm starving."

Spike sighed. "I swear it's not my fault."

~.~

To be continued…


	10. Houseguests pt2

Houseguests, pt 2

Lester walked toward the canteen with his daughter, Spike excusing himself and going off to find Connor. Whether it was to give Lester a bit of time with Jessica as he'd said, or just because he wanted to find Connor, Lester wasn't sure. Either way, he was glad that Jessica's mood had improved. She seemed to have taken a shine to Spike, even if he was apparently telling her way too much about things she shouldn't be hearing.

"So what exactly did Spike say about Angel and Becker?" he asked casually as they took their sandwiches and Jessica's slice of chocolate cake to a table and sat down. This was harder than he'd expected. How exactly did one have this conversation with a twelve year old? Maybe it was payback for his managing to avoid the birds and the bees talk with both of the kids earlier in their lives.

Jessica shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing. Just that Angel was Becker's boyfriend. And that he's Connor's," she added.

He'd told her? What the hell else had he said?

"Does it bother you that Spike and Connor are together? That they're both boys."

Shaking her head, Jessica struggled to unfasten the cardboard wrapper on the sandwiches one handed, eventually letting her dad take over and open it for her.

"No. It's kind of cute."

Lester ate his sandwich as he listened to Jessica telling him about the essay she was writing and the film she'd seen last week with her friends, all the while thinking about her utter lack of concern over the fact that Spike and Connor were in a relationship. He had expected her to be surprised at least.

~.~

Two days later, Lester was still thinking about it. Jessica had gone back to school this morning, meaning that he got a bit of time alone with Spike and Connor. Not much, as they had to set off to the ARC in a few minutes, but it was enough.

"I've been thinking about talking to Jessica," Lester said casually. "About us. I'm not saying that I'd tell her everything, just maybe see how she'd feel about it."

Spike nodded. "Well, she didn't seem too bothered by Angel and Becker, or when she asked me about Connor. Apparently one of her mates at school has a brother who she and this mate walked in on with his boyfriend," he informed Lester with a grin.

Lester sighed. That was the kind of thing he was worried about in the flat; although they had been careful, eventually someone was going to slip up and she was going to see something she shouldn't. He would rather talk to her first than have her finding out in that way. But no matter how she seemed to be handling the knowledge about the others, it would be a bit different being her own dad.

"What about David?" Connor asked. "He seems pretty comfortable with me and Spike but I don't think he'd really understand."

He wouldn't, Lester knew that. They would have to save that talk until he was a bit older. Glancing at his watch, Lester stood, picking up his jacket and briefcase.

"Come on, or we're going to be late."

Connor and Spike shared a look and before Lester knew it, he had an armful of Connor. Spike grabbed the briefcase and jacket from him at the same time as Connor spun Lester around and backed him against the door, going in for a kiss. This time, alone in the flat, there was none of the uneasy expectation of getting caught, or having to keep quiet in case one of the kids heard.

"Hey, let me have a turn," Spike complained, easing in to take Connor's place, pressed up against Lester as he kissed him.

"Do you think anyone would notice if we were an hour or so late?" Connor asked hopefully.

It was tempting, but Lester shook his head. "We can't. I've got a meeting at nine thirty. One I can't miss, even though I would much rather be here, back in bed with you two."

Spike sighed, releasing Lester and reaching up to straighten his tie. He handed Lester the jacket and briefcase again.

"I've got a better idea," he said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "Meet me in bunk room two at noon."

Lester frowned. "There are cameras in there, you realise that, don't you?"

Spike waved a hand dismissively. "Not like they work. Danny figured out how to loop the surveillance feed ages ago. Where do you think he vanishes off to when he wants a nap and doesn't want anyone to find him?"

Well, you learn something new every day, Lester thought, making a mental note to look there if ever Quinn went AWOL again.

"I am not having sex in the bunk rooms," Lester informed him. "It's against regulations; we could get fired for that. And besides, it's tacky."

"Showers?"

Lester rolled his eyes. "No."

"Spoilsport," Spike grumbled, pouting.

As it happened, there was no time to play at work anyway. No sooner had they arrived than the detector sounded, sending them out for what would only be the first anomaly of the day. The second alert came before the first team had returned, opening up in a shopping mall in the middle of Leeds. As Abby, Connor, Becker and Danny were already out at the first site, it fell to Spike and Angel to deal with the second, along with Sarah.

"Are you two going to be alright to deal with this?" Sarah asked the two vampires, given that it was still daytime outside.

Angel nodded. "Most shopping malls don't rely on windows for lighting the place up so we'll be able to keep out of the sun. You're driving, though."

They piled into the vehicles, the two vampires in the centre seats, blankets at the ready in case the sun shifted enough to catch them through the front windscreen. They didn't need them, though, the heavy, one-way tint that Lester had ordered applied to the vehicle windows so that the vampires could travel in them was effective in keeping out the sun. Three of Becker's soldiers squeezed in as well and they were off.

The mall was ideal for the vampires; it was possible to get around almost the entire place without encountering any natural light. The car park had given them a bit of trouble, but Sarah had pulled the vehicle up right next to the entrance so that they could make a run for it. When a security guard tried to tell her to move it, she ignored him, letting Becker's men inform him that they'd park where they bloody well liked, thank you very much.

"First floor," she announced, checking the detector in her hand and then pointing. She need not have bothered, as a loud roar alerted them to the location of the anomaly as well as answering the question of whether anything had come through.

The anomaly had appeared in the middle of a clothing shop, panicking shoppers and staff alike, who had then run screaming from the shop when the two creatures came barging through.

"What are they?" Angel asked, watching the two dinosaurs as they proceeded to eat their way though the entire inventory of Chrissie's Cookies, next door to the clothes shop.

"Haven't a bloody clue," Spike replied. "They're gonna be sick, eating all those cookies."

Sarah was standing just behind the two of them, looking at the shop front.

"There's a shutter on the Cookie kiosk," she whispered. "If we can close that, we can contain them until we work out how to get them back."

Both vampires turned to her. "Why are you whispering? The greedy buggers are too busy getting a sugar rush to notice us," Spike pointed out.

While they were distracted, Angel began edging his way toward the two creatures, one of the soldiers at his side, moving slowly so as not to attract their attention. One of the creatures spotted them as they got near and let out a roar to alert its companion but, before they could get back out over the counter, Angel and the soldier had them both tranquilised.

Spike came up beside them, looking at the two unconscious creatures on the floor in the narrow shop, broken cookies littering the floor, the dinosaurs' mouths lined with crumbs and chocolate smudges.

"Question for you, genius," he asked Angel. "How the hell do you plan to get them out of there and back through the anomaly now they're out cold?"

Angel opened his mouth, ready to offer a sarcastic reply, when he stopped. He looked back at the dinosaurs and the tiny staff door at the back of the kiosk, then to the smirk on Spike's face.

"Oh, shut up. What was your great plan, anyway?" he asked. "Make them follow a trail of cookies back to the anomaly?"

"'Would have been a lot better than having to drag the flamin' things back to it."

It took them an hour to haul the dinosaurs back to the anomaly, even with the vampires' superior strength, the soldiers and the help of three of the mall's security guards. Sarah set up an anomaly locking device and closed it down into a tight ball of light in the air, advising the owner of the clothes shop to keep it closed until the anomaly disappeared. He was more than willing to do so, having no desire to even go back inside to check the damage never mind open it up again while the anomaly was still there.

~.~

By the time they got back to the ARC it was late and everyone else had gone home. Becker was still there, waiting for Angel, and offering to give Spike a lift home as well.

When he got inside the flat, Connor, Lester and the children were just finishing their tea.

"Spike! We saved you some spaghetti Bolognese," Jessica announced.

Spike smiled at her. "Thanks, pet, but we stopped for something to eat on the way back."

Jessica looked a bit disappointed.

"I'd love a cuppa, though."

She beamed and hurried off to get him a mug, pouring him some from the teapot in the middle of the table.

"Guess what? I got an A for my essay!" she told him. "Miss Gupta said it was the best one."

Letting Jessica tell him all about her first day back at school, Spike sat back and wondered how the hell his life had ended up like this. He'd spent hundreds of years being the bad boy, the rebel; he'd never expected to end up with a job and a read-made family. Sure, he'd taken care of Dawn in Sunnydale, and he'd even been one of the gang back there, but kids? Far from making him run for the hills as he'd thought it would, he actually liked it. This was the life he'd wanted when he was human, even if the 'nice girl to settle down with' had turned into two men.

"So, how did it go in Leeds?" Connor asked. "Any problems?"

Spike glanced at the children, listening to his every word. "Two trespassers," he said carefully, "but we sent them back where they belonged. No injuries, but it's still open. We had to leave the lads there to guard it."

"Guard what?" David asked, chewing on his spaghetti.

"Please don't talk with your mouth full," Lester told him, before turning to Spike and Connor. "We can discuss this later."

They got the chance a few hours later when David had gone to bed and Jessica was in her room, playing with Nancy and Sid. When she emerged to get a drink and all conversation in the living room stopped, she frowned. Staring at them for a moment, she went to get a glass of orange juice and went straight back to her room.

"So, we never did get to finish what we started this morning," Spike said quietly, sliding closer to Lester on the sofa. "How's about we head off to bed… Come on, James. It'll be fine; no one was any the wiser the last time."

The door to Jessica's room opened again and she went to the kitchen to put her glass in the sink and Spike put some space between him and Lester again. Coming back, she stopped in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

"Every time I come in here you all stop talking," she said, looking between them. "You were doing it the other day, too. I'm not a kid; I know that something is going on."

"It's nothing, love."

"Are you talking about me?" she asked, the bravado fading slightly. "You are, aren't you?"

Lester got to his feet, hurrying over to her. "We weren't talking about you, I promise. We were just talking about work."

"No you weren't," she insisted. "Or you would have just said that."

Glancing back to Spike and Connor, Lester nodded minutely. If he'd been waiting for the right time, then it had just arrived kicking and screaming at his feet. The pair of them excused themselves, giving Lester and Jessica some privacy to talk. Lester knew where they'd be to come and find them when he was finished.

Jessica watched them leave before turning her worried expression to her dad as he led her to the sofa to sit down. For a while, they sat in silence as he worked out in his mind how to broach the subject, how to explain it to her.

"You know how your mum has been seeing Adam?" he began. She nodded. "Do you mind?"

She shook her head, frowning, looking confused as to where this was leading. "I like Adam. He's kind of old but he's nice."

"He's a year younger than me! That's not old." No, Lester told himself; that wasn't the point. "What if I were to start seeing someone, too? You and David would always be the most important people in my life, that won't change," he added quickly. "And I would never try and replace your mum; no one could ever take that away."

"I know, dad."

Lester gauged her reactions as he continued. "When we were talking the other day, you didn't seem uncomfortable with the fact that both Angel and Becker were men, and that they were dating," Then, quieter, "How would you feel if I began dating a man?"

She was silent for a while, fiddling with a piece of cotton on the cuff of her pyjama sleeve, and Lester wondered if he should have just kept his mouth shut and not said anything. Her reactions the other day had been encouraging but perhaps this was pushing her too far.

"Are you?" she asked, still not looking at him.

"Am I what?"

"Going out with a man."

Now or never, Lester told himself. "Yes. Jessica, I know you must have questions and I just want you to know that you can ask me anything."

"Does mum know?"

Lester nodded. He had talked to Amelia about Connor and Spike a few months ago, right after they had been outed by Helen at the ARC. She attended the same gym as one of the women who worked in payroll for the ARC and, as with Jessica, he didn't want her to find out through rumours and gossip.

"We talked about it and she said she just wants me to be happy," he said. "Just as I'm glad that your mum is happy with Adam."

Jessica looked up then, as though once she knew her mum was okay with it, then she could be as well. She did look a bit concerned when Lester continued, however.

"There's something else," he told her. "You know how most times there are two people, either men or women, in a relationship? Well, sometimes it's three people."

She smiled. "Like on Jeremy Kyle? There was this programme where the man had two girlfriends and they didn't like each other and when they came on stage one of them slapped the other-"

Bloody hell, what _had_ she been allowed to watch?

"Not exactly, love. Sometimes, it can be three people who all love each other and they all get along really well." He took a deep breath and said quickly, "Spike and Connor don't just live here, they live with me. They're both my boyfriends," he added, seeing the slightly confused look on her face.

He could see her thinking it over, the slight frown on her face as she worked through the information in her own mind

"Jessica, if there's anything you want to ask-"

She stood up. "Can I go to bed now?"

~.~

When he didn't come to find them, Connor and Spike let themselves into his room to find him sitting on the bed, just staring into space.

"It didn't go well then, I take it?" Connor asked sitting down beside him.

Lester just shook his head.

"What did she say?"

"Not a lot. She just said she wanted to go to bed and left."

Spike crouched in front of him, hands on Lester's knees to balance himself. "She's a sharp kid," he said. "Probably just wants to be on her own to get her head 'round this. Give her a bit of time and she'll be fine."

"I hope so. What if she says something to David?" Lester said. "I can't even think of having that conversation just yet."

Connor smiled. "It's a shame there isn't one of those help books for kids that you could give him. Like those ones for dealing with bereavement."

"I don't think they make one for 'Daddy and mummy got divorced and now daddy is living with two men'," Spike pointed out. "Or a 'Daddy is shagging a vampire' one either."

"You know, we should write one," Connor suggested. "We could corner the market on this one."

Spike laughed. "As far as we know, me and Angel are the only vamps here. So, unless Becker's got a kid he'd not telling us about, I'm not sure there'd be much demand for it. Now if it was for Becker, you'd do better with a 'How to train your nancy-boy vampire'."

As Lester smiled at their bickering, Connor gave him a hug. "That's better. Now, how about we all get some sleep and talk to her in the morning when she's had time to process this. It was kind of a big thing for her to find out."

He and Spike stood up to go back to their room, not wanting to make the situation worse by Jessica finding them in with Lester.

"I reckon you ought to tell her about me, too," Spike said as they left. "She seemed more pissed that you were keeping things from her; one more big secret isn't going to help."

~.~

The following morning, Jessica emerged from her bedroom for breakfast and sat down at the table in silence. She mumbled a thank you when Connor poured her some cocoa-pops and passed her the milk but other than that, she didn't say a word. David obviously knew that something was wrong as he kept looking between them, as though hoping that one of them would tell him. When no one did, he sighed and went back to his cereal.

"Are you taking me to school today, dad?" he asked a few minutes later, dutifully taking his empty bowl to the sink.

Lester nodded. "Jessica, will it be okay if Connor gives you a lift to school?" When she shrugged her shoulders, he took it as a yes. "Connor, take the car then you and Spike can come straight to the ARC. David and I don't mind a walk, do we?"

David looked happy with the thought of having his dad to talk to for the whole walk to school and hurried off to get his coat and bag, practically dragging his dad out of the door.

"So, pet, let's have it," Spike said to Jessica. "Whatever's on your mind: tell us to piss off and stay away from your dad if you like. Just talk to us."

At that, she looked up at him, surprised. "What? No! I wouldn't do that. It's just…"

"Just what?" Connor asked.

"I don't understand how he could love mum and then suddenly like boys too. I mean, don't you like one or the other?"

"Not necessarily," Spike told her. "Before I met your dad and Connor, I was involved with a lass called Drusilla for a long time. Thought she was the love of my life. Then there was Buffy. Thought I loved her too, for a while," he mused. "Anyway, my point is that sometimes it's not one or the other; sometimes you just love who you love."

She smiled at him for the first time that morning. "Okay. But he still should have told me," she said, the smile fading again.

"He didn't know how to," Connor said. "He was worried that if you didn't approve, that you wouldn't want to spend time with him. He didn't want to lose you."

"Oh."

Connor stood up and handed Jessica her coat. "Come on, time for school. Your dad will not be happy with us if you're late."

They were headed toward the car, parked in the underground car park under Lester's block of flats, when Jessica paused and frowned at Spike.

"Why have you brought a blanket with you?"

Spike draped an arm over her shoulders and gave her a hug. "That, my little niblet, is a story for another time."

~.~

The anomaly detector started wailing at around noon and causing Lester to look up from his paperwork. Two days of peace and quiet, he thought. He'd been enjoying the opportunity to get caught up on paperwork that didn't involve field reports and requisitions to replace whatever equipment the team had broken while out chasing creatures. Between that and Becker's constant requests for new gadgets and guns, he found himself saying no rather a lot.

"Lester, we've got another anomaly," Connor announced, barging into his office.

Lester arched an eyebrow. "Yes, I can hear the alarms."

Connor ignored his sarcasm. "It's in the grounds of Greenfields School."

When Lester appeared next to the vehicles, glaring at Danny until he relinquished his claim on the front seat, no one commented. Sure, they eyed him curiously, wondering why he was suddenly coming out to an anomaly with them. When Spike and Angel climbed in the back as well, Becker frowned.

"Are you sure you want to come? We can't guarantee the anomaly will be under cover," he told the two vampires.

The two of them didn't move, staying seated.

"Greenfields is my daughter's school," Lester told Becker. "I won't get in your way or interfere with your command, but I'm going."

"Us too," Spike announced, Angel agreeing with him.

Becker nodded, knowing that in Lester's place he would do the same, and started the engine.

~.~

To be continued…


	11. Houseguests pt3

Houseguests, pt 3

Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into the grounds of the school. So far there was no sign of an anomaly but the hand held detectors still insisted that it was here.

"Up there," Connor said, pointing to the teacher at a second floor window, knocking on the glass and trying to tell them to keep away. He got out, heading for the doors, only to be stopped by the school's caretaker.

"Don't open that, lad."

Becker and his soldiers came closer. "It's okay. This is what we do," he assured the man. "Now, what happened?"

He didn't know where the anomaly had appeared as he'd been sweeping the gymnasium at the time, the caretaker told them, but there had been these odd animals. They were about the size of Great Danes, but with scaly skin and huge teeth. There hadn't been many pupils in the gyms or workshops at that time and so the teachers had managed to get everyone up to the second floor, closing off the heavy fire doors behind them. He had come back out this way to lock the outer doors and call for help.

"I called the RSPCA," he told them. "I thought, they catch strays and things, don't they?"

"Not these kinds of strays," Connor told him, turning to Becker. "It doesn't sound like anything from the database, unless it's an entirely undiscovered species. Or it could be from the future, not the past. I need to get a good look at one of them."

They couldn't just wait out here all day; they had to get to the anomaly and lock it down before anything else came through.

"Okay, folks," Becker called to the teams. "I want everyone carrying tranquiliser guns and live ammo; we have no idea what these things are and we can't risk them getting loose with the kids still in there. Tranqs first," he said, seeing Abby's disapproving look. "Live rounds only as a last resort."

Moving around to the front of the building, they cautiously approached the door into the foyer, the windows allowing them to see that the area was clear of creatures. It was unlocked, but closed in order to keep the creatures contained.

"We go in here," Becker told them.

Danny brought the vehicle closer, pulling up as close to the entrance as he could, climbing out, his hand on the back door handle. At Spike's nod from inside, he pulled open the door, as Connor opened the one into the foyer. Under the cover of heavy blankets, a faint trail of smoke following them, Spike and Angel to make a dash for the door, racing inside out of the sunlight. Becker's men moved in after them, spreading out to secure the area as the others followed the two vampires in.

Abby and Danny both had tranquiliser guns at the ready, going to join Becker's men as he ordered them into search teams. Connor was already on his way to the offices with the caretaker, in search of the fire plans for the school. It would help them to have a floor plan, to make sure they didn't miss any corridors where the creatures could slip by them.

"Becker, where do you want us?" Spike asked.

Becker instructed them to join the search teams but Lester opened his mouth to object. Then remembering his earlier promise not to step on Becker's authority, he closed it again.

"Sir? If you'd prefer something else, it's fine. We can handle the search."

Lester smiled at Becker. "I was thinking that I should perhaps go and speak to the teachers upstairs, let them know what's happening."

Becker nodded. "Spike, go with him. Angel, maybe you should keep an eye on Connor." He looked to Lester. "Go and make sure she's alright," he said quietly.

Lester and Spike set off toward the main stairs as Becker and the others waited for Connor to get back with the plans before setting off toward the gymnasiums and few classrooms on that level.

As they walked onto the second floor corridor, people watched from the small square windows in the classroom doors, eager to see what was going on. Moments later, a teacher emerged from one of the classrooms, looking each way down the corridor nervously before she stepped out fully.

"You really shouldn't be here at the moment," she said. "There are some animals loose-"

Lester smiled. "It's alright. Myself and my colleagues downstairs are here to deal with those creatures. Who first saw them? It would be helpful if we could speak to that person."

She pointed to the classroom on the far end of the corridor. "Janet Leeming. She was taking a PE lesson in Gym 2 when those things appeared. When we evacuated the ground floor, I saw her take the kids into the end room."

Thanking her, Lester and Spike set off again, Lester pausing a few steps later. "I don't suppose you know where form group 10F are at present, do you?"

She shook her head. "Sorry."

The end classroom was packed with terrified looking children in sports kit, two teachers trying to calm them down. When Lester tried the door handle, one of the children squealed as though expecting to find one of the creatures trying to get in. A woman in her twenties in a tracksuit and trainers hurried over.

"Are you Janet Leeming?" Lester asked. When she nodded, he indicated for her to step outside. "We need to talk to you about the animals. I gather you were the first to see them?"

"I was. Look, I'll be happy to answer whatever you like, but I'm not going out there."

Spike shut the door and followed her to the desk at the front of the room where it was a bit quieter.

"Mr Lester? You're Jessica's father, aren't you?" the other teacher in the room said, coming to join them. "What are you doing here?"

"My job. My team are downstairs tracking the creatures but I need a few things, such as where they first appeared, and how many there were."

The PE teacher thought for a moment. "I think saw five of them, but I can't be certain that there weren't more. Or less; they all looked the same. To begin with we didn't see them, but we could hear them. The door was propped open, into the corridor, and we could hear something coming, like a dog walking on tiles with that clicking sound. Only bigger, much bigger. Then one came inside."

Spike had his mobile phone out, relaying the information to Becker and the team. Listening for a moment, he turned to the teachers.

"Is everyone accounted for?" he asked. "Is there anyone left down there?"

Mrs Leeming fell silent for a moment, her eyes going to Lester.

"What?"

"Jessica and five others got separated from us. They were near to the equipment cupboard, getting the volleyballs out and so rather than run past the animal, they locked themselves in there. I thought it would be safer."

Spike could see Lester clench his fists at his sides as he glared at the teacher. "You just left my daughter down there? You had better hope she hasn't a scratch on her, or you will never be teaching again. I'll make certain of that."

"We couldn't go back for them!" she protested. "More of those animals appeared and if we didn't move then, we wouldn't have been able to get past them."

Spike turned on his heel and stormed out, dialling Becker again as he filled them in on the situation.

"Where are you going? It's not safe out there," Mrs Leeming called after him.

Glowering at her, Spike paused. "No, it's not, which is why we're going to get Jessica."

When he and Lester reached the end of the corridor that led to the gyms and classrooms, they found Angel waiting for them, along with Connor and Abby and a floor plan that had been printed off the computer.

"There are more of them down there than we thought," Angel reported. "They've caught three so far, but Hils said they've managed to get through a fire door and into the main hall. Unfortunately, that means they've got access to the rest of the building."

"So downstairs has been cleared?" Lester asked. "Good."

He pulled open the door and marched through, following Connor's directions, heading down to the lower level. It seemed that, although they had tranquilised the creatures that were down there, they hadn't yet shut down the anomaly.

"Connor, find it and get it closed," Lester snapped at him.

Connor hurried off with Abby at his side, gun raised to fend off any creatures that might come through as he locked the anomaly. They kept out of sight of the creatures as he followed the hand held detector to the classroom in the middle of the corridor.

"They're definitely in there," Angel said, looking at the storeroom door.

Beside him, Spike nodded. He could smell the fear radiating from the room, the girls trapped in there terrified of the creatures currently clawing and scratching at the door. Lester didn't need to know that, though, and so the vampires kept quiet. He leaned out, watching as three of the creatures sniffed and clawed at the wooden door marked 'storeroom'. Suddenly, one of them charged at it, head-butting it hard enough for the wood to creak, although it didn't break. There was a squeal from inside the room, hastily cut off as though someone had clamped a hand over the screamer's mouth. The smell of fear increased.

"We need a distraction," Lester said, as they slammed into the door again and again. The wood was starting to buckle now, the metal handle bent and mangled after taking a direct hit.

"What we need is a gun," Spike amended but their only gun was with Abby and she was still looking out for Connor as he locked the anomaly.

Or two pissed off vampires, Lester thought later. When the pair of them let their vampire side take over, faces changing and fangs showing, they were a sight to see. The second that the creatures saw them, they charged, snarling and attacking. In a way, Lester felt sorry for them as the two vampires fought together, taking down two of the creatures with brutal precision, going for their softer underbellies or throats. Spike snapped the neck of the last one and went over to the door.

The lock had been twisted under the assault leaving it unable to be opened, and so he aimed a booted foot at it and kicked, hard, sending the door slamming open. Six girls in shorts and t-shirts sat huddled together at the back of the room, squeezed under the shelving. When Spike barged in, the one nearest to him let out a whimper and tried to back away further. He frowned, then remembered, quickly shifting his face back to normal. The girls now watched him suspiciously, as though not really believing what they'd just seen.

He smiled, crouching down in front of Jessica. "Hiya, pet. Ready to get out of here?"

The other five girls looked at Jessica in surprise as she smiled and scrambled out, throwing her arms around Spike and hugging him.

"Your dad and Angel are just outside," he told her.

"With the animals?"

He shook his head, addressing the rest of them too. "The animals outside here are dead, and the rest of them have been tracked down and dealt with. It's safe."

With that, Jessica let him go and ran outside to her dad as Spike and Angel convinced the other girls it was really safe to leave, taking them out. When they saw the dead creatures in the corridor, they paled, trying not to look at them. One girl started crying.

"Hey, come on. You're not supposed to cry when you get rescued," Angel teased lightly, trying to keep his body between her and the dead creatures. "Swooning over the handsome heroes who did the rescuing, maybe, but not crying. Well, one handsome hero, and Spike."

Spike turned and glared at him. "I can out-hero you any day of the week," he grumbled.

"I notice you didn't argue about the 'handsome' part," Angel retorted.

"Oh, get stuffed."

Angel sniggered. "What an eloquent response, William."

"Don't call me that, _Liam_."

Their bickering was having the desired effect, taking the girls' minds off the creatures. Jessica and the others went to get their clothes from the locker room, getting cold in just their shorts and t-shirts, hurrying as though expecting the three men to have left them again when they came back out. By the time they re-emerged, Connor and Abby had caught them up. Connor gave Jessica a hug, waving hello to Kelly, the friend Jessica had introduced him to that morning when he'd dropped her off at school. Becker and the rest of the team met them at the top of the stairs.

"All clear?" Lester asked them.

Becker nodded. "They're all down; we'll need Connor to open the anomaly so that we can shove them back through. Any more down there?"

"All dead, though we probably should remove them," he said. The rest of the team headed down to deal with them, Becker staying behind to make sure everyone was alright.

"Clean-up in aisle five," Angel muttered under his breath, causing Spike and Jessica to laugh.

She was looking a little less wide-eyed and jittery now, as were the others, and she gave Angel a smile.

"Angel? Thank you for coming to get us."

Angel grinned back. "Any time."

He saw one of the girls nudge her in the ribs and she turned. "Who are these people?" she whispered.

Jessica nodded. "That's Angel, Spike, Connor and Becker. Spike and Connor live with my dad," she announced proudly.

"Becker's cute," the girl whispered, oblivious to the fact that their entire conversation was being listened to by not only the man in question - who was currently blushing a nice shade of pink- but everyone else, too. "I bet he's got a girlfriend, though."

Jessica shook her head, smiling at the momentary look of delight on the other girl's face. "Actually, he's got Angel."

Her friend looked them both over speculatively. "You mean they're, _you know,_ like boyfriends?"

"Yep."

Spike took in the embarrassed expression on Becker's face and laughed. "Looks like you've got some competition," he told Angel.

Becker just blushed even more and made the excuse of having to go and check on his team, hurrying off toward the gymnasiums again.

~.~

The creatures were sent back through the anomaly, even the ones that Spike and Angel had dispatched, and the headmistress informed that the building was clear. As the anomaly was still present, they were going to have to leave someone to watch it until it disappeared, keeping that classroom locked and off-limits until it did.

"I would also like to make a complaint regarding the fact that one of your teachers abandoned six children with those creatures. When we arrived, the creatures had almost broken through the door and into the room where the girls had sought refuge," Lester told her. "Had we not gone to find them when we did, I doubt they would all have been here, unscathed, right now. When I leave my daughter in this establishment, I do so with the understanding that she will be looked after. Your staff have a duty of care to the pupils, one that does not include running away and hiding whilst they are in danger."

As the headmistress attempted to apologise, he cut her off mid-sentence.

"My formal letter of complaint regarding Janet Leeming will be in the post tomorrow. Good day."

Outside, Spike and Angel were waiting with Jessica and the other girls. Though they had calmed down, none of them were willing to leave their rescuers' sides just yet. A young man in a slightly shabby grey suit was standing nearby, and Lester recognised him from the last parents evening as Jessica's form tutor. When Lester came out, he held out his hand.

"Mr Lester, it's good to see you again. Not the circumstances, of course. It's been an eventful day," he mused. "I called the girls' parents to come and collect them. Lord knows what I'm going to tell them when they get here."

Jessica, still almost leaning against Spike's side, looked up at her dad. "Does that mean we can go home?"

He smiled at her. "Soon, love. I need to stay here for a little while longer, but Spike and Connor could take you home if you wanted."

Spike nudged her gently, whispering, "If you say yes then we get the afternoon off as well."

Jessica smiled. "Okay. But you're coming home soon, aren't you, dad?"

"As soon as I talk to the other parents."

Mr Farrington, the form tutor, looked relieved to have some help explaining this. Especially as, so far, the headmistress hadn't even emerged from her office to check on the girls, Lester noted.

A few minutes later, Connor came in through the main doors to tell them that they were ready to go.

Jessica, Spike and Angel followed him out, the two vampires keeping in the shadows as far as they could before tugging their coats over their heads and making a run for it, scrambling in through the door that Connor had left open for them. Jessica followed at a normal pace and climbed into the back to sit next to Spike, frowning at them.

"You two are weird, you know that?" She got comfortable and clipped her seatbelt on, before asking hesitantly, "Spike? When you first came into the room, why did your face look strange?"

Spike glanced at Angel over her head, looking for some help fielding this one. He didn't know if Lester intended to tell her what Spike was, but the girl was asking now. And, as he'd said to Lester days earlier, she was likely to be more annoyed if they kept things a secret from her. Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly get back out of the car and go speak to Lester without the braving the sunlight again. He really didn't want to do that.

Angel looked up as Connor approached the car, pointing it out and sidetracking Jessica from her current question. Hopefully, getting home would make her forget about it for at least a few hours.

"You guys mind if I tag along?" he asked Spike and Connor. "Hils is going to be busy for a while here and he's kind of my ride home."

~.~

Jessica was nothing if not persistent. She managed a whole hour before going back to her earlier question and Spike and Angel's deflection of it.

"Why don't you eat?" she asked, seeing Spike and Angel with only a mug of tea each as she and Connor devoured a turkey, lettuce and tomato sandwich each.

"I eat," Spike protested. Just not food, he added silently.

"Well, I've never seen you," she pointed out. "And that door was like, super heavy, and you just kicked it open. That was cool, by the way."

She really was her father's daughter, Connor thought as he watched the two vampires squirm under her questions. She was like a dog with a bone when she set her mind to something and he had a feeling that she wasn't going to back off from this until she had an answer she was happy with.

"Okay, pet," Spike said. "Here's the truth. Me and Angel are vampires."

The look she gave them reminded Connor of the one he used to get from Lester, the one that said 'stop playing silly buggers; it's getting annoying'.

"Vampires? As in, blood and fangs and turning into bats and can't go out in sunlight-"

She paused, thinking as she said that last part, remembering all the times that the two of them had raced across sun lit areas, with coats or blankets over their heads.

"No, you can't be, because they don't exist except in those dumb movies."

She fell off the end of the sofa as Angel's fangs lengthened and his face shifted, backing up as fast as she could. Getting to her feet, she raced over to Connor, clutching his arm as she half hid behind him.

"You're- But-"

Connor took her hand and eased her out from her hiding place. "It's okay," he promised. "Ignore what you know from the movies- this is Spike and Angel, the same people you've been hanging out with all week."

It took a while to convince her that the two vampires weren't actually going to hurt her, but eventually she sat back down on the sofa again. She kept watching them nervously, but after a while even that faded.

"So, you're don't kill people?"

Both of them shook their heads, and Connor heaved a sigh of relief. Now was not the time to start telling her that mere decades ago, the pair had been thought of as two of the most vicious bloodsuckers of their time.

"We both have souls," Spike told her. "Though some of us had to actually earn them," he added with a pointed glance at Angel. "See, when a vampire is made, a demon takes over. It kills and hurts people with no sense of right and wrong because there isn't a soul, a conscience, in there too. Me and Angel got our moral compasses back when we got our souls."

Jessica nodded. "That makes sense. You know, up until a few minutes ago, I thought those weird animals attacking the school would be the strangest thing to happen to me today." She pondered it a moment longer. "So, if you're really vampires, can you fly?"

"No."

"Do you sparkle if you stand in the sun?" she asked.

Angel made a disgusted sound. "No we damn well don't. Real vampires do not sparkle; we get caught in the sun and we burn, plain and simple. Sparkle! Bloody Twilight."

"Yeah, that woman wouldn't know a real vampire if it jumped up and bit her," Spike agreed. "Honestly, since that sodding film came along that's what everyone thinks we are- a bunch of namby-pamby sparkly wusses."

By the time Lester got home an hour later with Becker and David, Jessica's initial fear had vanished completely. She looked up as David came bouncing in, telling them about how fantastic his football practice had gone after school but then he stopped. Glancing around at them all, his gaze finally settled on his sister.

"What?"

Jessica looked up at Spike and Angel, eyes asking her silent question. At Angel's nod, she beamed.

"Spike and Angel are vampires!"

He just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

"Really. Spike, show him."

David let out a rather girly yelp as Spike let the demon in him come to the surface, insisting that Spike had just surprised him and that he wasn't scared, thank you very much. Like Jessica, his fear vanished quickly given that he knew his dad wouldn't let them be around Spike or Angel if they were dangerous.

"This is awesome. So, you're like real vampires? Do you drink blood? Can you turn into a bat? Do you sleep in a coffin?"

Spike glanced over at Connor, thinking that there was something really familiar about this, remembering a year ago when he met a strange young man on the Forth Bridge. One who also asked way too many question.

"Do you sparkle?"

Both men turned and glared, just as Connor clapped a hand over David's mouth.

"We don't mention the T word," Jessica told him with a giggle. "They get a bit cranky about it."

Lester headed for the kitchen, indicating for Connor to follow him.

"How is she?" he asked. "She seems a lot happier than she did back at the school."

Connor turned to watch as Spike pulled vampire faces for David while he and Angel fended off the kind of questions that only an eight year old could come up with. Things such as: if you only drink blood, do you need to use the bathroom? Or, how do you do your hair if you don't have a reflection? That one was from Jessica, but he had to admit it was one of the first things he'd asked too when he met Spike.

"She's fine. You're not mad that we told her, are you? She'd seen Spike back at the school, seen his face, and she kept asking."

Lester shook his head. It had to happen sooner or later, just as he'd needed to tell her that he was involved with the two men. Whether or not he would have told David was another matter. He wasn't worried that his son would be scared of them, quite the opposite in fact. David had a knack for letting things slip that he wasn't supposed to mention. It came in handy when one of the children had broken something and he wanted to know who but, when it came to keeping the existence of two vampires a secret, however, that wasn't a good thing. He was likely to see it as something cool to tell his friends rather than keeping it quiet for the sake of Angel and Spike.

"I'll have to talk to him about keeping this to himself," he mused aloud as they went back into the living room. "Okay, you two have homework," he told the children. "Go on, you can annoy Spike and Angel later."

Angel stood up. "Actually, I think Becker is getting impatient so I'd better go," he said, following Becker out of the door.

"Gee, thanks," Spike grumbled, realising that he was being left to fend off the next round of questions that the kids would likely be thinking up when they were meant to be doing their homework.

A few hours later, Lester looked around at the now-empty living room, the children gone off to their beds, and sat down on the sofa, exhausted. It had been a dreadful day, that moment of fear upon hearing that it was his daughter's school under attack from the creatures, and then seeing her terrified and cowering in that small room with the others.

"It's okay," Connor told him, sitting down beside him, as he voiced that weariness. "She's fine. She didn't get hurt- none of the kids did- and it's safe again at the school."

Lester nodded. "I know that, but she's just a child; she shouldn't have to be dealing with my world."

"But she had to, and she handled it pretty well," Connor pointed out. "I've seen adults fall apart when they come face to face with the creatures, but she didn't. She's definitely a Lester," he joked.

"Look, maybe its better this way," Spike added. "It's like everything else; she was going to find out sometime. We had a talk on the way back from the school and she's not going to tell her brother about the creatures, or about us, for that matter."

Lester heaved a sigh of relief. "Good, because I don't intend to have that conversation with him for another few years at least."

Spike looked at the clock on the wall and stood up, holding his hands out to both Connor and Lester.

"Come on; bed."

Both followed, Lester not even protesting that the children might see as he followed the other two into Connor's room. Right now, he just wanted to go to sleep, knowing that the children were safe and that he had Connor and Spike there with him, and rest.

Tomorrow, he would have to call Amelia: informing his ex-wife that their children knew about the vampires (and actually telling Amelia that one of the men living with him _was_ a vampire); that Jessica now knew about his living arrangements; that she had been attacked at the school by possible future predators.

If he thought talking to Jessica about his living arrangement had been scary, it was nothing compared to breaking the rest of the news to his ex.

~.~

End.


End file.
